County reports third case of meningitis

BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio (WDTN) - Logan County health commissioners have confirmed that an 11-month-old baby has bacterial meningitis. It is the third case in six days.

A spokesperson with the county's health department stressed this latest case involving the 11-month-old baby was unrelated to two other cases involving two mothers who had just given birth.

Officials said the child had a different strain of the bacteria, believed to be streptococcus pneumonia, a common type of bacterial meningitis. Health officials said some strains of that were included in childhood immunizations.

Two other cases of bacterial meningitis were reported at Mary Rutan Hospital last week.  Hospital officials said the two women contracted the bacteria 24 hours after giving birth to healthy babies.

Staff at Mary Rutan said the only common link between these two women was that they were given the same mix of anesthetic drugs, using the same procedure prior to giving birth on Thursday. Both of them started getting worse on Friday morning, and were then transported to Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus.

One of those women, 30-year-old Susan Ryan Finch Simpson, a physical therapist at Heartland of Bellefontaine died late Friday night.

Hospital officials say they cannot comment on whether the 11-month old baby was also a patient at the hospital because of federal privacy laws.

"Overall, again this is something we feel awful about and want to work with the families and communities as best we can," said Mandy Goble, President and CEO of Mary Rutan Hospital.  "Our hearts go out to the families and patients. We hope that we can determine what happened through our investigation. We want to assure the community that it is safe to come to Mary Rutan hospital and there is not risk for infection."

Hospital officials said the infection rate at Mary Rutan was currently listed at 0.4 percent, which was much less than the national average of 9 percent. Logan County health officials stressed this was not an outbreak, and the strains of bacterial meningitis found in all three victims were not contagious and do not pose any danger to the community.