Approximately 75 percent of all Dartmouth undergraduates are now vaccinated against the form of meningicoccal disease that tragically took the life of Jenica Rosekrans '00 nearly one year ago, according to Dr. John Turco director of college health services.
And the College has completed a review of its emergency response procedures which were activated for the incident.
Rosekrans, who died just before last year's Commencement exercises from a severe blood infection associated with meningicoccal bacteria, was one of two confirmed cases of bacterial meningitis at the College last June. In the second case, a student was treated with antibiotics at Dick's House and subsequently released.
Following Rosekrans's death, the state of New Hampshire undertook a massive effort to vaccinate students against meningicoccal bacteria, offering free vaccines to all Dartmouth students. The College itself also held a campaign to vaccinate students in the fall, sponsoring several free clinics at Dick's House.
Although the College does not plan to hold any such clinics this term, Turco stressed that, "students any time can come into the health service and get vaccinated."
Aside from the rash of vaccinations, Rosekrans's death also prompted an improvement in general College emergency procedures, Dean of the College Dan Nelson said.
"Jenica's illness and sudden death ... was a time of profound sadness for all of us," Nelson said.
"[But] the one thing in that circumstance that I think worked well was that in the period following her death we were able to put in place some preexisting emergency protocols to make sure we could get information out to people in the community."
Measures taken at the time of Rosekrans's death to ensure student safety included the establishment of a temporary hotline and website devoted to addressing students' concerns about the illness as well as a series of informative updates sent to the Dartmouth community via blitz-mail and regular mail.
Earlier this year, according to Nelson, representatives from the College's various administrative departments attended a meeting to discuss emergency management procedures.
The conclusion reached by the administrators, Nelson said, was that the College already has "some very good emergency procedures in place. It was a matter of reviewing those [procedures] and finding ways we could make them work even better if we ever had a tragic situation in which we needed to employ them again."
Nelson said Dartmouth's emergency management system consists of several components -- Safety and Security, the dean-on-call, an on-call doctor from the college health service, the dean-in-charge, and the President of the College.
Safety and Security, which is open 24 hours a day all year, is the College's primary emergency response system, Nelson said.
In emergencies requiring medical support, Safety and Security officers have the option of contacting an on-call doctor from the college health service.
If a situation warrants immediate administrative support, Safety and Security officers may contact the dean-on-call, a rotating position held by various deans of the college, who may be reached at any time by cell-phone or pager. Safety and Security officers may also call on the dean-in-charge -- usually Dean of the College James Larimore or another senior administrative officer -- and the President of the College.
When a major emergency occurs, all those involved in the College's emergency management system gather together to handle the situation, "whether its two in the morning on a Wednesday or two in the afternoon on a Sunday," Nelson said.
In reviewing the specific actions taken by the College during the meningitis scare last June, Nelson said that he was most impressed with the expedient way the College informed members of the Dartmouth community about the outbreak.
Meningicoccal outbreaks are usually comprised of one or two cases of confirmed bacterial meningitis, according to Turco.
"This is a very sporadic disease. Already this year, I've been aware of two or three deaths at other college campuses ... Every year, in this country there are at least several college age deaths as well as younger kids," he said.
Even so, due to the relatively rare occurrence of the disease, Turco believes that the institution of College-mandated meningicoccal vaccines is unlikely.
He still, however, urges all students to receive the vaccination.
"The biggest thing we've done is to try to immunize as many students as we can," Turco said.
The current meningicoccal vaccine, which can last between three to five years, offers protection from three of the four types of meningicoccal infections and is currently the best preventative measure individual students can take against the disease, according to Turco.
The meningicoccal vaccine available at Dick's House costs $60 and may be charged to students' Dartmouth accounts.
