11-Year-Old Boy Who Died At Jewish Camp Had Meningitis

By JTA July 15, 2017

(JTA) — An 11-year-old camper at a Jewish summer camp in Pennsylvania who died Monday had contracted meningitis.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health informed Camp Nah-Jee-Wah in Milford, Pa, late on Thursday that Daniel Beer had tested positive for a bacterial form of meningitis, the camp said on Friday in a statement. The disease leads to inflammation of the brain and spinal cord and can be fatal.

Beer contracted a form of meningitis caused by the neisseria meningitidis bacteria, the camp said, citing the health department. The bacteria can lead to meningococcal disease, an infection that is contagious and can be spread by close contact, such as by living with or kissing an infected person, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can lead to a variety of symptoms, such as fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea and vomiting, and death can occur within hours of the onset of symptoms.

Beer died after being hospitalized at Bon Secours Community Hospital in Port Jervis, N.Y. for what the camp said were “gastrointestinal symptoms.”

In the Friday statement, the camp said it has provided preventative antibiotic treatment to campers and staff who had direct contact with Beer. All parents were also given the option to have their children receive preventative meningitis treatment, even if they had not come in contact with Beer.

“We have the antibiotic available at camp and an infection control specialist at camp overseeing treatment and monitoring everyone for symptoms,” according to the statement.

“We thank everyone in our camp community for their continuing support through this difficult time, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the young camper we have lost,” the camp said.

Camp Nah-Jee-Wah is part of New Jersey Y Camps.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO