The Larimer County Department of Health and Environment says the Colorado State University student, junior Kurt Solomon, started feeling sick on Tuesday afternoon. They say he was fortunate to have three housemates who took him to the hospital Tuesday night.
"His roomamates probably played a really key role in saving his life," Adriene LeBaily, with the Larimer County Health Department said. "Kudos to them and the doctors who didn't think he really think he had meningicocal discease but treated him as if he did until proven otherwise, and the CSU contact who treated, before they knew. All did exactly the right thing."
Solomon, a sociology major, has been hospitalized with the bacteria at Poudre Valley Hospital since then. They say he was immunized in 2006 and has not been linked to the other cases.
According to health officials, the Solomon is listed in fair condition.
The same strain of meningococcal bacteria that killed three hockey players earlier this year and infected three others, also killed CSU student Christina Adame in October.
CSU plans to have a clinic offering immunizations to students on Friday.
Health experts say 99 percent of people who are exposed to meningococcal bacteria, which causes both bacterial meningitis and a blood infection called sepsis, will never have symptoms, but they can easily pass it along to anyone who comes in contact with their saliva, she said.
For Adame, 23, that meant she was next in a very long line of mostly asymptomatic people passing the bacteria to others through about six months - a line that stretched from an initial case of the strain discovered in a Metropolitan State College student in April through the three Adult Hockey Association players who died of the disease in June and October.
It then passed through an unknown number of people to Adame.
Larimer County officials say all of those who died of the disease were infected with Group C meningococcal bacteria, one of four groups of bacteria targeted by the meningitis vaccine.
The virulent Group C meningococcal outbreak was originally traced to a Metro State student who died of invasive meningococcal disease on April 8 after attending a party in Boulder. Two friends of his were CSU students who were given antibiotics but showed no symptoms of the disease.
The second person to fall ill, known as "Patient 1" because he was the first with direct Larimer County connections, was a CSU student who became sick during Memorial Day weekend and survived.
The third case in the outbreak, known as "Patient 2," was Adult Hockey Association player Brian Wormus, who died in June. His death was followed by the fourth case of the illness, fellow hockey player Nick Smith, who died later the same month.
Another man became ill with a different strain of meningococcal disease, Group B, at the same time as the hockey players, but his case was unrelated to the others.
Hockey player William Jubert of Bellvue was the fifth person to become infected with the Group C strain of the bacteria. He fell ill in June while on vacation in Montana. After a long battle with the illness, he died Oct. 11.
Sixth to become infected with the Group C strain was the child of a hockey player who fell ill in August and survived.
Adame was the seventh known person to become ill with the Group C strain. She died Oct. 20.
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