LOWELL, Mass. -- A Lowell elementary school student has died of meningitis.

NewsCenter 5's Pam Cross reported that officials said bacterial meningitis killed Galilea Estevez, 7, a Shaughnessy Elementary School pupil.

"I can't explain it. It is so hard, you know? To see your daughter like that when you wake up," the child's stepfather, David, said.

Lowell health officials called it an isolated case, and do not fear for the rest of the city's safety.

"Many of us carry the bacteria in our own bodies and are immune to it. Every now and then, you get one of these episodes where it goes to meningitis and it can kill very rapidly," said Frank Singleton, of the Lowell Health Department.

When the girl went to the school nurse Monday afternoon, she had a fever and did not feel well. Her family brought her home. Her mother called an ambulance Monday night when the girl became unresponsive. She died early Tuesday morning at Saints Memorial Medical Center.

"Almost all of us are immune by the time we are adults. It has to be picked up from another human being. The point is that this girl's immune system could not fight it off and some how it got from the throat, where it normally resides, and went to the brain," Singleton said.

Antibiotics have been given to about 100 first-graders and other children who rode the bus with the child. EMTs and teachers who came in contact with the child were also given antibiotics as a precaution.

Grief counselors were at the school for children, parents and staff Monday.

"First reaction was very scared because my son is in the second grade. But I called my doctor and they assured me as long as my son didn't have direct contact with the child, it would be OK for him to go to school," parent Allison Horne said.

"I feel very sad about her and other people who were her friend are taking it very bad," student Emily Gonzalez said.

The girl's five brothers, including newborn twins, are not affected and were given antibiotics. The family had never heard of bacterial meningitis until it took their only daughter.

"She was a good kid, beautiful. It is sad, sad," David said.

The girl is the first child under the age of 12 to die of bacterial meningitis in Massachusetts since 2003. There were 29 reported cases of the illness last year, and three of those patients died, according to the Department of Public Health.

Symptoms of meningitis, including headaches, high fever, stiff neck and fatigue, can appear very quickly.