Halifax – Students at Acadia University lined up to get a meningitis vaccination well before the clinic even opened.
Health officials anticipated giving out 200 to 300 meningitis vaccinations at Acadia Wednesday. By the end of the day they had vaccinated 526 people.
Cameron Ashe, a fourth year student at the school was the first to receive the shot, “I think public health has done a really good job explaining the actual likelihood and the actual how the disease is transmitted,” he tells Global News.
Health officials in Nova Scotia have ordered enough vaccine for 4,000. With an institutional outbreak of meningitis declared at Acadia University, officials are hoping to vaccinate as many students as possible.
“It’s important that we stop the transmission and providing this vaccine to students will get us there,” says Kim McGill, Communicable Disease Prevention & Control with Capital Health.
The on campus vaccination clinics come nearly three weeks after Sarah Hastings death.
Hope Maryka, the second student to be diagnosed with the b-strain of meningococcal meningitis, is still in hospital recovering from the disease.
“We’re looking forward to Hope being back on campus and active as a student,” says James Sanford, Director of Student Services at Acadia University.
Many students say the last few weeks have been difficult on them. “It’s been really hard on campus. I think people are just really confused and everything sort of happened so fast,” says Emily Cunningham, a fourth year student.
Cunningham is taking advantage of the free meningitis vaccine to protect herself and her friends.
“I think it just puts the whole campus at ease knowing that we’re all having it or have the opportunity to have it,” she says.
Clinics will be held on campus tomorrow – and next week – to allow students the opportunity to get vaccinated.
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