Second Homeless Person Dies From Bacterial Infection
A second homeless person in Boston has died from a potent bacterial infection, and another person was stricken with the same illness in recent weeks, prompting city health officials to indefinitely extend a vaccination campaign.
A second homeless person in Boston has died from a potent bacterial infection, and another person was stricken with the same illness in recent weeks, prompting city health officials to indefinitely extend a vaccination campaign.
Since January, four men and one woman who frequent the city’s homeless shelters have come down with meningococcal disease, a bacterial infection that can get into the bloodstream or the lining of the brain and spinal cord. The first person to succumb to the disease was a man who died Feb. 15.
The next day, the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program launched an effort to vaccinate as many adults as possible, and so far it has administered shots to 2,400 guests and staff members at adult homeless shelters around the city, said Dr. Denise De Las Nueces, the agency’s medical director.
