nsive care, up to 15 percent of people who develop meningococcal disease die. An additional 10 percent to 20 percent suffer complications such as brain damage and loss of limb or hearing.
“If your child gets sick in the morning, they can be dead the very next day,” said Melinda Thomas, a school nurse at Falcon Ridge Middle School in Apple Valley who is part of a vaccine awareness campaign funded by the drug company Sanofi-Pasteur.
Neither Sanofi-Pasteur — which makes one of the vaccines available in the United States — nor the National Association of School Nurses would say how much money is being spent on the awareness effort. During the first half of 2012, the drug company reported about $205 million in worldwide sales of its meningitis vaccine.
Retail clinics charge about $180 for the vaccine, but the cost of the shot typically is covered by health insurance plans.
“I think sometimes unless the vaccines are required, parents go: ‘Well, we don’t really need that,’ ” Thomas said. “That’s what this campaign is about — to educate parents about the need for this vaccine.”
The Minnesota Department of Health is seeking a change to the state’s immunization law that would require a child enrolling in a secondary school to have a meningococcal vaccination beginning in the seventh grade. Exceptions would be made if parents or guardians take a medical or conscientious exemption for the vaccine.
The health department started the process of changing the law through rulemaking on April 30, with the first in a series of steps that typically take a year to 18 months to complete, said Ehresmann, the health department official.
At least 14 states require proof of meningitis vaccination or a waiver, according to the St. Paul-based Immunization Action Coalition.
About 70 percent of U.S. adolescents ages 13-17 had received the meningitis vaccine last year, according to estimates from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Minnesota, the estimated vaccination rate is between 56 percent and 70 percent.
“There is a consistent trend since 2008 of Minnesota’s point estimate being lower than the national point estimate, which gives credence to the position that our true rate probably is somewhat lower than the national true rate,” Ehresmann said.
“One reason could be that some states require meningococcal vaccination for school entry at, (for example), seventh grade. Those states are likely to have higher rates and pull up the national average relative to states that don’t.”
Currently, the meningitis vaccine is recommended for adolescents, preferably at age 11 or 12, with a booster dose at 16. In 2003, a Minnesota law required colleges to provide information on the meningococcal vaccine, but the state hasn’t required vaccination itself.
(Wisconsin does not require the meningococcal vaccine, but colleges and universities must distribute information annually to all students about meningococcal disease.)
College students living in dormitories and military personnel are at increased risk for meningococcal meningitis because they reside in community settings where the bacteria can spread more quickly.
It’s unclear why meningococcal diseases have become less common, Ehresmann said. In Minnesota, there were nine cases in 2010 — down from 56 cases in 1999, according to the health department. The decline is the key reason, Ehresmann said, that infectious disease professionals haven’t pushed for immunizing infants and toddlers.
Currently, there are about 1,000 cases of meningococcal diseases annually in the U.S. and 150 deaths, said Jessica MacNeil, a CDC epidemiologist. Previously, there would have been a few thousand cases per year, she said.
She said the decline in cases occurred before 2005, when the government licensed the first long-lasting meningitis vaccine.
“Meningococcal disease definitely has a cyclical nature to it, and we don’t really know why that is,” MacNeil said. “It’s at an all-time low, but this is really a devastating illness. That’s why we think it’s really important that adolescents get vaccinated.”
James Dunn und