A STUDENT nurse has died in Galway from meningococcal meningitis. Ms Eilish Killian (21), from Hollywell, near Roscommon town, died on Sunday in University College Hospital, Galway, where she worked.
The infection was at an advanced stage when she was admitted on Friday night suffering from flu like symptoms and vomiting.
Her death has stunned her fellow student nurses, who described her as extremely popular. They attended a special Mass for her in the hospital on Saturday evening.
The eldest daughter of James and Anna Killian, she is survived also by her sister Aine and brother John. Her remains will be removed to Derrane Church in Roscommon this evening leaving Smyth's funeral home in the town at 7 p.m. Burial will take place after 12 noon Mass tomorrow.
All people who had been in contact with Ms Killian before her death are understood to have been inoculated against infection, though a spokesman for University College Hospital in Galway stressed in a statement last evening that there was no cause for public concern.
Another young woman was admitted to hospital in Galway at the weekend suffering from meningitis but is recovering. There is no connection whatsoever between the two cases, Dr Gerry Fogarty, a public health doctor with the Western Health Board, said.
Dr Fogarty said that because of its similarity to flu symptoms, meningitis was very difficult to detect in the early stages. One in 10 of the population carried the bacterium in the back of their throats without ever developing meningitis and only one in 15,000 to 20,000 will get the disease.
This was the second death from meningitis in Co Galway this year. In January a two year old boy died in Ballinasloe from meningococcal septicaemia, a more virulent strain.
Department of Health figures show that there were 241 confirmed cases of meningitis in 1994 and 300 in 1995.