LIVE: New Back-to-School Vaccine Requirement

Protect your student from a disease that could kill or maim them.

It’s a devastating disease that can run rampant among kids, particularly those in high school, returning to play sports again this year, or perhaps to start new relationships for the first time in their young lives. It’s bacterial meningitis, and if your child contracts it, they can stand a 10 to 15 percent chance of dying from it. Among those that survive, another 20 percent can lose limbs, be left blind, or suffer serious, lingering nerve and neurological damage the rest of their lives.

It’s bacterial meningitis, and high schoolers can spread it easily. That’s why the North Dakota Department of Health is  requiring for the first time this year your junior and senior high schoolers to have their second meningitis shot by October. Statistics show only 40 percent of our 16- and 17-year-olds in the state have gotten that second dose — and that means there are a lot of kids out there who are unprotected.

Brenton Nesemeier, from the North Dakota Department of Health, sat down live in-studio with the Morning Show’s Emily Welker to talk about how kids get bacterial meningitis and why it’s so important to get your child vaccinated.