The Larimer County Health Department today confirmed that a 23-year-old Colorado State University student was killed by meningicoccal disease.
Christina Adame, a sophomore who lived off campus, died early Wednesday morning from meningococcal sepsis, an overwhelming infection of the blood similar to the illness that killed three men who contracted while playing in a pick-up hockey game in June. That outbreak, also in Fort Collins, sickened two other people.
The Larimer County coroner’s office on Wednesday ruled out meningococcal meningitis, a different manifestation of the same bacterial infection, as the cause of death after an autopsy.
Zachary Ratzlaff, a CSU freshman hospitalized after displaying symptoms similar to those Adame suffered, however, is likely not suffering from the same infection.
“It is unlikely that he has the same infection,” said Jane Viste, spokeswoman for Larimer County Department of Health and Environment. “He is still being treated with antibiotics as if he does have it until that is confirmed.”
Ratzlaff, 19, is in fair condition in the neurology unit at Poudre Valley Hospital.
Health officials have been contacting those closest to Adame, who might have shared eating utensils or drinking containers with her, and are treating them with antibiotics as a precaution.
Meningicoccal infection is rare, with only 16 to 24 people contracting it each year from 2007 through 2010 in Colorado. About 10 percent of those died, said Dr. Ken Gershman, chief of the communicable disease program at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The transmission and death rate are low in spite of the fact that at any one time as many as 15 percent of the population carries the bacteria, Viste said.
“Obviously, not everybody gets clinically sick,” she said. “But with the three hockey players and in this case, their bodies don’t take it well and they end up either very seriously ill or in these cases it led to death.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
