Local News in Brief : Prisoner Gets Meningitis

One inmate at Sybil Brand Institute for Women is critically ill with meningitis and a second is suffering from a related but less serious infection, said Dr. John H. Clark Jr., the Los Angeles County jail system’s chief physician.

Clark declined to identify the women. He said that they have been moved to a jail ward at County-USC Medical Center and that inmates who shared dormitories with them have been offered an antibiotic as a preventive treatment.

But because the preventive drug is known to cause some deformities in rat fetuses, not all of the pregnant women in the dormitories have agreed to take the drug. Of 49 pregnant women, Clark said, 16 declined.

The meningitis case is the first of the deadly bacterial infection reported in the jail system this year. Seven cases were reported last year, all among male prisoners, one of whom died. In 1986, 10 cases were reported, all among male prisoners, one of whom died.

So far this year in Los Angeles County, 47 meningitis cases have been reported, with 10 deaths, Clark said. There were 308 cases in the county and 52 deaths last year.