Local News in Brief : Inmate Has Meningitis
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A 21-year-old inmate at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s Biscailuz Center, a minimum-security jail facility in East Los Angeles, is in critical condition with meningococcal meningitis, sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.
Dr. John H. Clark, chief physician for the Sheriff’s Department, said the prisoner, who was not identified, became ill on Saturday and was taken to County-USC Medical Center. Clark said 73 other inmates in a potentially contaminated barracks area at the facility were treated with antibiotics Monday, although none showed symptoms of the highly contagious and sometimes fatal brain disease.
The case was the fifth of meningitis reported in county jail facilities this year, compared to seven in 1987, Clark said. Throughout the county, he said, there have been 90 cases and 15 meningitis deaths so far in 1988.
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