Meningitis shot: It's not mandatory, but vaccine is a necessary precaution
SPRINGFIELD – When Lisa Mazzocco starts college at the University of Illinois this fall, she'll have registered for classes, moved into her dorm room, bought books.
She'll also have been vaccinated against meningitis.
The vaccine isn't required for entrance to the UI or any other public university in the state. And getting a shot that isn't mandatory probably isn't on the to-do list for most incoming college freshmen.
But Mazzocco's mother insisted on it. She did the same with her older daughter, Valerie, when she entered the UI.
"I made her get it," said Vida Mazzocco, a pharmacist at Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana. "I think mainly it was because of the articles I read. Every time it happened here in town, when a student contracted it, the newspapers covered it. What really brought it to the forefront to me was the specific cases.
"The reason I was so insistent was because how fast it progresses," she said. "It's scary."
Meningitis is an infection of the fluid in the spinal cord and surrounding the brain. It can be caused by a virus or bacteria, but the bacterial forms are generally more severe.
Bacterial meningitis can be transmitted by close contact, such as kissing or sharing a drink or eating utensils. College students and others living in close residential quarters, such as dorms, are particularly at risk.
Meningitis killed three UI students and one Eastern Illinois University student between 1991 and '92 and sickened five others. An EIU student died from the disease in 1994 and another in 1999.
A UI freshman, Erica Van Zuidam, contracted bacterial meningitis in May 2005. She survived but had to have her hands and feet amputated. She'll also be vaccinated before returning to the UI this fall, to ensure she doesn't contract one of the other strains of the disease (there are five).
State law requires public universities to provide information about meningitis and its transmission to incoming students, and to offer the meningitis vaccine. The impetus for the law, which went into effect in 2002, was the death of an EIU student, 19-year-old Beth Miller of Coal City, from meningitis in March 1999.
"We thought if we could let them know the incidence of bacterial meningitis is three times more for college students, they can make a decision to take the vaccine," said Judy Myers of Danville, a former state senator who sponsored the bill. Myers is a Republican candidate for the 52nd Senate District, the seat being vacated by Sen. Rick Winkel, R-Urbana, who is not running for re-election.
"I think, unfortunately, the only time it really resonates is when there's a tragedy," Myers said.
Students are not required to be vaccinated, although an early version of a Senate bill would have required all incoming students at public universities to get the vaccine or sign a waiver. Nine states require that university students get the vaccine.
The provisions requiring the vaccine and the waiver were removed from the Illinois bills. University officials expressed concerns about liability if a student refused to sign a waiver or if waivers were lost.
"It did perhaps put an undue burden on universities to be the policemen for that," Myers said.
The cost of the vaccine was also a factor in determining if it should be required. A fiscal note from the Illinois Board of Higher Education said the vaccine could cost universities from $1.1 million to $1.5 million (assuming no co-payment from students) if the vaccine cost $60 to $75 a shot and 10 percent of the students entering public universities in the fall of 2000 opted to get it.
At the UI, students pay $30 for the vaccine, which costs the university $90 each. Other schools charge considerably more.
State Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, who co-sponsored the bill in the House, said there weren't enough votes to make the vaccine mandatory, and much of the reason was its cost.
"The university made it very clear they could not absorb that cost. They would have to pass it along to students," he said.
"The issue is whether or not the information program is really doing the job. I think we could probably do a much better job of outreach than we do, but with the cost, state funding being flat for almost five years, and tuition going up the way it has, we can't sit there and cavalierly say, 'We don't care what it costs, you have to do it.'
He said what is being done is adequate.
"Does it go as far as it could? No," he said, acknowledging that college students are particularly difficult to reach with safety information because they don't think they'll get sick. "I much prefer we do a better job of outreach, instead of saying, 'Hang the cost, you're all going to get the shot.' "
Dr. Robert Palinkas, medical director of the UI's McKinley Health Center, said the UI prefers the vaccine be voluntary. He said it provides "a huge public health protection" by offering the vaccine at a low cost.
"We'd love to have as many students vaccinated as we could," he said. "We think the best way to do that is through education and making it really easy for people to get vaccinated. We are at orientation where a mom and her son or daughter is there. We're only charging $30. We think that is the way to get a high acceptance of the vaccine. We don't think requiring it for someone who can't afford it or doesn't want it is the way to do it."
The immunization form that incoming UI students must fill out includes a section that requests information about whether students have had "highly recommended vaccines" for Hepatitis B, Varivax or meningitis. A paragraph describes meningitis and states that college freshmen, especially those living in dorms, are at increased risk, and that a vaccine is available.
Lisa Mazzocco didn't look at it too closely. Neither did Van Zuidam.
"I had no idea whatsoever what meningitis was, let alone getting a shot for it," Van Zuidam said. "This is something they really need to yell to the parents."
Mazzocco said, "I just filled out what I knew and left the rest for later. If I was really responsible and didn't depend (on my parents) to fill the thing out for me, I would probably read it."
Informing parents about the disease is key, Myers said.
"If they feel it's important, they'll make sure it happens," she said.
Vida Mazzocco and husband Mike, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics and interim director of the Office of Corporate Relations for the Urbana campus, probably have more knowledge of meningitis than many parents because of Vida's career in the healthcare field and Mike's presence on a college campus.
But they hadn't even seen their daughter's paperwork from the UI until recently.
Vida Mazzocco thinks universities should require students to sign a waiver or acknowledgment they have received the information about meningitis, to draw attention to it.
"Knowing how devastating it can be and how preventible it could be, it would be a great service if they put out something they know people would read," she said. "More than what was in there would be helpful."
Tim Van Zuidam, Erica's father, agrees.
"What needs be done is they need to get in your face, more than they do right now," he said. "Everybody has to be made fully aware of, this is what meningitis is, this is what it can do. If you don't get the vaccine, you should have to sign a waiver that you fully understand the risks. I think if that's done, the percentage (of vaccinated students) would go up. They just don't know about it."
Erica Van Zuidam is in favor of requiring the vaccine.
"For sure, I think you shouldn't be able to register for classes until you get it," she said.
Vida Mazzocco said she'd like to see pediatricians talk about the disease with patients who are about to go off to college. She said perhaps more of them will, with new recommendations approved last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calling for all college freshmen living in dorms to be vaccinated.
