Cortalvin is a small, well-kept local authority estate of 44 houses in Monaghan town. On Monday evening Colm Maher, a 12-year-old boy from the estate, was brought to hospital. Later that night he was diagnosed as suffering from meningitis. On Tuesday he was transferred to Temple Street Hospital in Dublin where he is still critically ill.
In line with established practice members of his immediate family were all treated with antibiotics as a preventive measure and were asked about other close contacts.
Also on Monday night his friend and neighbour, 15-year-old Kieran McGahon, complained of flu-type symptoms. Unaware of the meningitis case in the street, his parents sent him to bed. The next morning he told his mother he was feeling very ill and collapsed on to her bed. He was rushed to hospital, but it was too late. He, too, had mengicoccal meningitis and it had gone too far to save him.
He was the eldest of three children, and yesterday blinds were drawn in the mid-terrace house where he lived.
On Tuesday two other boys from the estate were admitted to hospital with similar symptoms. They were still undergoing tests yesterday and were described as stable.
The Residents' Association of Cortalvin and Mullaghmatt, a larger adjoining housing estate, were concerned and alarmed that they had not been notified about the outbreak as soon as it was diagnosed.
Its chairman, Mr Malachy Toal, with the help of a local TD, Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain, began to pressurise the North-Eastern Health Board for a public meeting on the outbreak.
Agreement to hold such a meeting was finally obtained late on Tuesday night. Both the health board and the residents' association leafleted some 300 houses in the area yesterday morning and the meeting was announced on local radio.
It is a measure of the public concern that over 600 people turned up at the meeting less than 12 hours later.
At that meeting Mr O Caolain asked whether it might be better to "err on the side of alarm" rather than caution in informing people immediately of a suspected outbreak of meningitis.
Spokespeople for the health board replied that their first concern was always for the patient and that the evidence was that the greatest risk was to his or her immediate contacts.
Mr O Caolain told The Irish Times he would be writing to the Minister for Health, proposing that the procedures following an outbreak should include extending the catchment group for alert beyond the blood connection.
He stressed that he was not criticising the action of the health board or any of the professionals involved, but that he wanted to open up a discussion on the practice concerning notification procedures in future.