Immunizations ordered against Ohio outbreak

Health officials have ordered an immunization program for students who attend six Ohio high schools

ALLIANCE, Ohio (CNN) -- Health officials on Tuesday ordered an immunization program for 5,800 students against a bacterial infection that can cause meningitis, after two teens died of the infection.

Ohio Health Department Director Nick Baird said students who attend six high schools will be vaccinated beginning Friday. All but one of those schools -- Alliance High School -- already canceled classes through the end of the year. Students will be required to report to their school to get the injection.

"It is important to emphasize that this bacterial meningitis is not like the common cold," Baird said at a news conference. Spreading the bacteria requires intimate contact such as sharing utensils or kissing, he said.

MORE Learn more about meningitis from the CDC    SYMPTOMS: • fever • headache • muscle aches • stiff neck • nausea

The vaccine is effective against four of the five strains of the bacteria, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The only strain against which it does not confer protection is strain b, which accounts for about 1,000 of the 3,000 cases that occur each year in the United States. Meningococcal disease has a mortality rate of 10 percent to 15 percent, he said.

Last weekend more than 37,000 residents in this northeastern Ohio city flocked to two hospitals to get preventative antibiotics after the first two cases were announced. Distribution stopped Monday morning when health officials said the exposure period had expired.

The prophylactic antibiotics were given after two youths -- a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl -- died over Memorial Day weekend of Neisseria meningitides group c, a strain of bacteria that can cause meningitis. The boy died of meningitis; the girl died of meningococcemia, an infection of the blood that is more dangerous than meningitis. The two students attended the same high school.

A third teenager, an 18-year-old girl who attends a different school, remains at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron. Her sera were being tested at CDC labs in Atlanta to determine whether she had been infected with the same bacteria. Test results were expected back Wednesday or Thursday.

The bacterial infection can cause flu-like symptoms, including a fever, headache, muscle aches, a stiff neck and sometimes nausea.