Officials suspect the two shared a water bottle at a school picnic last month.
The bacteria give victims either meningitis, a disease of the brain, or meningococcemia, a blood infection. The germs are spread by saliva by such means as drinking out of someone else's glass or sharing a fork or spoon. Symptoms include high fever, headache, stiff neck, confusion, nausea, vomiting and exhaustion. Over the weekend, thousands of people in the Alliance area lined up to get antibiotics, and about 37,000 doses were given out. But the pills protect people for only a day or two.