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LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — Health officials are urging people to take precautions against meningitis.
The state Department of Health and Hospitals says an East Baton Rouge high school student died earlier this month from a strain of meningitis.
State Epidemiologist Raul Ratard says the type of virus found in the girl was not contagious.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two colleges, Princeton University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, are experiencing unrelated outbreaks of serogroup B meningococcal disease.
In Acadiana, Michael Odinet, emergency medicine physician, at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, tells The Advertiser (http://bit.ly/1dfBPVN ) hospitals and other health care facilities commonly see viral, or "aseptic," cases of meningitis.
Odinet says viral meningitis is less dangerous that bacterial meningitis, but both can be lethal if not detected in time.
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