The case of a nursery school pupil who contracted meningitis last week shows how effective and efficient the Island's health system can be.

As soon as the potentially fatal disease was diagnosed, the child's entire class was given medical treatment to ensure that they could not contract the condition.

This was an example of public health officials, the hospital, school officials and private physicians working together to prevent the spread of this particular strain of this disease, which if it goes undetected, can be fatal within 12 hours.

While school officials cannot be expected to know everything about every disease that may affect those in their care, moving quickly to call in those who do know about them is the best course.