Teche Area schools will require an expanded student immunization regimen for the 2009-10 school year, including vaccination against meningitis for students who are entering the sixth grade or who are at least 11 years old and entering any grade.

Students entering pre-k, kindergarten, day care and Head Start in Iberia, St. Martin and St. Mary parishes will be required to provide evidence of an additional vaccination against varicella, commonly known as chicken pox.

In addition to the new mandate, students are required to have had booster shots of both DTap (Diptheria, Tetanus, Acellular Pertussis) and polio on or after their fourth birthdays and before beginning school.

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Iberia Parish school system head nurse Barbara Hitter said these are special legislative acts passed a year ago by the state Legislature.

“I know some parents have been concerned with another immunization, but we really push for the parents to take care of this,” she said. “This could keep them healthy.”

Herb Loy, an immunization program consultant with the Louisiana’s Office of Public Health, said several outbreaks of meningitis across the state caused the increased meningococcal immunization.

“The impetus has been the meningitis deaths a few years ago,” Loy said. “There were several cases at ULL in Lafayette, at Tulane and others scattered around the state. The thing primarily with meningitis is it’s a disease that is relatively low in its incidence, but the consequences are extremely high.”

Meningitis is a preventable infection, with both bacterial and viral forms, that can cause devastating and unpredictable physical effects, striking up to 3,000 Americans each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is spread through physical contact with the microorganisms.

The condition receives its title from the subsequent inflammation of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord known as the meninges, according to the CDC.

Although not always fatal, the effects of the disease leave 15 percent of those infected suffering long-term or permanent disabilities.

“The outbreaks usually occur in schools and the military,” Loy said. “Anywhere people are in close proximity to each other run a risk of viral matters such as meningitis.”