Meningitis outbreak being treated as national incident – as health sec
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An outbreak of meningitis is being treated as a national incident after the deaths of a sixth-form pupil and a university student.
Thousands of students in Kent are being urged to get vaccines and take antibiotics as health officials deal with the “unprecedented” and “explosive” outbreak.
Some 15 cases have been reported to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) so far. All required hospital admission.
The number of cases is expected to rise because the incubation period from infection to when symptoms appear is two to 14 days.
Around 5,000 students in university halls in Kent will be offered the meningitis B (menB) vaccine in the coming days, while four schools across the county have confirmed cases and hundreds of people are being offered antibiotics.
Experts said many of those affected had attended Club Chemistry in Canterbury between 5-7 March.
UKHSA chief executive Susan Hopkins said the outbreak “looks like a super-spreader” event with “ongoing spread” through universities’ halls of residence.
“There will have been some parties particularly around this, so there will have been lots of social mixing,” she added.
“I can’t yet say where the initial infection came from, how it’s got into this cohort, and why it’s created such an explosive amount of infections.
“I can say that in my 35 years working in medicine, in healthcare and hospitals, this is the most cases I’ve seen in a single weekend with this type of infection.
“It’s the explosive nature that is unprecedented here – the…
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