Shots Urged for Meningitis Outbreak

An outbreak of potentially deadly bacterial meningitis among American Indians in northern Minnesota has triggered a massive vaccination program, officials in Duluth, Minn., said. About 3,000 people will be vaccinated beginning today, said Carol Thibault, director of the St. Louis County Department of Public Health. Four cases of the disease have been confirmed in the last two weeks. The victims, all of them American Indians, included three children and a 20-year-old man, all with ties to the Fond du Lac Indian reservation near Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior.