Grieving Waterloo mother starts meningitis foundation

A Waterloo woman grieving the loss of her 19-year-old son to meningitis three years ago has established a foundation to raise money for research into the deadly disease.

The Meningitis Research Foundation of Canada, set up by Kathryn Blain, is affiliated with the Meningitis Research Foundation in England.

The British group was chosen over a U.S. agency which limits its research to spinal meningitis, she said. "I wanted something that would cover all forms of the disease, that would be available across Canada."

Dr. Ronald Gold, retired chief of infectious diseases at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, sits on the new foundation's five-member board as medical adviser.

"He agreed right away. We are very blessed to have him," Blain said.

The project has been in the works for several months and was born of Blain's grief for her son, Michael Longo, a student at St. David Catholic Secondary School in Waterloo when he died in 1995.

The foundation, which started off with $3,500 donated in Michael's name, now has $20,000, mostly from local donors and fund-raising by high schools, fire departments and a golf club.

The goal is to raise $100,000 in a year, Blain said.

Public education, support and information for families of meningitis patients are also part of the mandate, she said.

An outbreak in Waterloo Region last winter that took the lives of two teenagers and left a third person severely affected -- among seven local people who contracted the disease -- was a painful reminder for Blain.

At the time, she wondered why there was so little known about the disease, and why there was apparently no Canadian research organization.

She contacted Toronto resident Shlomo Watkin, the father of Orly Watkin who died of meningitis in 1994 at the age of 15. Watkin had set up a fund-raising organization in his daughter's name.

However, Watkin has to limit his activity to one event a year, Blain said, and those proceeds go to Sunnybrook Health Centre in Toronto where microbiologist Andy Simor has a meningitis study under way.