By BEN SERRANO Correspondent BUTUAN City––Health authorities have started tracing the people who have had contact with a three-year-old child who is confined at the Adela Serra Ty Memorial Medical Center in Tandag City on suspicion of having meningococcemia. Surigao del Sur provincial health officer Dr. Gerry Irrizari said the boy from Barangay Gamut, Tago, Surigao del Sur, was rushed to the hospital because of meningococ-cemia symptoms. Provincial health office surveillance team leader Richelle Felizcoso said the boy has been isolated and doctors were closely monitoring his condition. Felizcoso said they started identifying people, especially children, with whom the boy had contact with in Tago town. She said she feared the boy’s five-year-old brother also contracted the disease, and may have infected his kindergarten classmates. Felizcoso said they were looking at some 30 children, excluding teachers, and other people in the community. Meningococcemia is a bacterial infection in the blood caused by the Neisseria meningitides bacteria. It can  spread through sneezing or coughing.