She got it in school

THE father of a five-year-old girl who died last week from meningitis yesterday said he believes she contracted the viral infection while at school and as such, is calling for a thorough sanitisation of the facility to prevent the disease spreading.

Davey James told Newsday that when his daughter Emily Veronique Browne, who was a first-year student at the Fifth Company Baptist Primary school, came down with a headache last week Monday, he at first thought it was an allergic reaction.

The father of two said as the days passed, Emily began to have seizures with the headaches. Doctors later said these were signs of meningitis. This, James said, was confirmed after an autopsy was done yesterday at the San Fernando General Hospital’s (SFGH) mortuary.

“On Monday after she returned from school, she went to stick a cake up the hill. But she came back home and was complaining of pains behind her head. By the next morning, she was getting pains to her forehead,” James said. The family lives at Ramdhanie Road in Moruga.

Relatives took Emily to the Princes Town District Health Facility where she was treated and discharged the same day. On Wednesday they took her to SFGH, where tests showed she had a virus. “They give me a prescription and told us to come back on Saturday if the pain was continuing.” By Thursday afternoon, he was back at the hospital. Emily died early on Friday.

James believes she contracted meningitis at school and called for it to be properly sanitised. “There is nowhere else she could have picked it up. It originated there. That school needs a proper cleaning, proper sanitisation,” he said. Other relatives described Emily as a “healthy child and a little tomboy.”

According to the UK’s Meningitis Research Foundation, meningitis is the swelling of the meninges, the lining around the brain and spinal cord, caused mainly by germs entering the body. It says different germs such as bacteria, viruses and fungi can cause meningitis and septicaemia if they invade the body.

Contacted for comment, TT Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) president Lynsley Doodhai told Newsday no sanitisation was done at the school over the weekend. Of the 24 teachers, 21 were at work yesterday but there was a low student turn out.

“Of the 575 students, only about 125 went out to school today (yesterday) and parents took away their children early.

“I can confirm that health officials visited the school today and they recommended more sanitation,” Doodhai said.