School hostels quarantined
2003-08-01 08:56
Antoinette Pienaar and Karen Fourie
Pretoria - A Uitenhage high school administered preventative antibiotics to all its pupils on Friday morning, after a matric pupil was admitted to Cuyler Hospital's intensive care unit with meningitis.
All four residences at Hoërskool Die Brandwag have been placed under quarantine.
Kolie Olivier, 18, a matric pupil at the school, may have contracted meningitis when he visited Hoërskool Jim Fouché in Bloemfontein recently.
He was in a stable condition on Friday morning.
About 450 pupils of Die Brandwag in Uitenhage and nearly 200 adults travelled to Bloemfontein by train on Saturday last week for the school's annual inter-schools meeting. Olivier plays for the school's first rugby team.
A few Brandwag old boys, who are now studying at Potchefstroom University, travelled to Bloemfontein to support their alma mater.
A letter will be sent to all parents of pupils at Jim Fouché on Friday to be on the lookout for meningitis symptoms.
A superfit University of Pretoria student may have been one of the first victims of this season's deadly strain of meningitis, which has already claimed three lives in Potchefstroom.
The heartbroken parents of Ettienne Searle, 22, of Moreleta Park said their son died barely 36 hours after being admitted to Pretoria East Hospital's intensive care unit on July 2.
Searle's parents said on Thursday that they have heard of more cases of meningitis in Pretoria.
"We want to make people aware of the seriousness of the disease. It's also here in Pretoria and not just in Potchefstroom." says Elna, Searle's mother.
Before Ettienne's death, he complained about a sore throat and took medicine for flu and sinusitis.
"We went out to dinner one evening and in the car Ettienne sat up close to his sister, Karen, 20, and complained that he had chills.
Ettienne shivered uncontrollably at the restaurant and complained of a severe headache. His parents took him to hospital, where doctors wanted to know if he had a stiff neck, but he didn't.
Searle started vomiting and ran a fever of 40°. The next day he had a purple rash.
He was transferred to the intensive care unit where a physician diagnosed meningococcal meningitis.
"Later that morning they told us that his chances of survival were slim, his kidneys had failed and he was connected to a respirator," said his father Ossie.
Ettienne died later that day. He had been a final-year mechanical engineering student and had represented South Africa in karate in 1998.
His parents confirmed that they were contacted from Potchefstroom as an aquaintance of their son's had visited the city a while ago.
"We don't want to speculate, because someone may start feeling bad," said Searl. - News24
- Beeld