Two New York campuses are on high alert after three cases of three cases of possible bacterial meningitis.

Bacterial meningitis, an infection in the fluid lining of the brain and spinal cord, can be spread by direct contact with saliva, such as kissing, sharing eating utensils, drinks or cigarettes. Symptoms of the disease include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, rash and stiff neck.

Craig Schiesser, 18, a freshman at SUNY College at Oswego, was found unconscious in his dormitory room Friday and was later pronounced dead at Oswego Hospital because of meningitis, Deborah F. Stanley, the president of the school said in a statement according to the New York Times.

Separately, two students at Cornell University, a 21-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man, have been hospitalized in the span of less than a week with the condition, health officials announced. The first case was discovered on March 8, when the woman was hospitalized at Cayuga Medical Center with symptoms of the disease followed on Thursday by the man who arrived at the same hospital and was presumed to have meningococcal meningitis, Simeon Moss, a representative for Cornell said.

Health officials believe that these two students may have been in contact with each other at one or more of three recent parties in Ithaca. “We know that certainly they were in contact with folks who were at the same parties,” Moss said.

Those parties all took place on or around the Cornell campus in early March. One was at 124 Catherine Street on March 6, another the same day at 118 Cook Street, and the third on March 8 at 306 Highland Road, at a Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity house.

Health authorities urged students who attended those parties to get a preventive antibiotic at a medical clinic as soon as possible. Also, officials at both SUNY College and Cornell University sent out an alert to all students warning them that they should seek medical attention if they had contact with the infected ones in the past 10 days.

Between 1,400 and 2,800 people in the Unites States are struck by the disease each year. Up to 14 percent of these people die and up to one in five survivors suffer brain damage, amputation and/or hearing loss.

The most exposed to this disease are infants younger than one year, but disease incidence peaks again during the teen years.

Vaccines can protect against most types of meningococcal meningitis, but there are cases when they do not cover all the strains.