The government has announced a major expansion in vaccination against meningitis in Kent after seven new cases of the disease were confirmed in the county, taking the total number of cases to 27. On a visit to the University of Kent, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, said anyone who attended the Club Chemistry nightclub in Canterbury from 5 March until 15 March should come forward for antibiotics and vaccination.
“We’re expanding vaccination to anyone who’s previously been offered the prophylactic antibiotic,” he added. “These are proportionate steps to help us contain spread and we’re keeping that situation under review.” That will include students at the University of Kent and some at Canterbury Christ Church University, as well as sixth formers at the four schools and colleges with confirmed or suspected cases of meningitis. The University of Kent said all its students and staff were now eligible for the vaccine.
Prof Susan Hopkins, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said: “By extending the vaccination programme to everyone who has been offered preventive antibiotics, we are taking an important additional step to protect those most likely to have been exposed. The message is simple: if you have had the antibiotic, you are also eligible for the vaccination.” In a statement, the UKHSA said other people may also be offered the jab and preventive antibiotics “on a case-by-case basis”.
Officials believe that the strategy of preventive antibiotics and targeted vaccination is proving effective, as the bacteria causing the outbreak is a known strain of meningitis B, the Guardian understands. But it remains unclear why this outbreak has been so large. Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Thursday, Prof Robin May, the chief scientific officer at UKHSA, said there were two possible reasons for such a large number of cases from a single event: “One is that there might be something about the kind of behaviours that individual people are doing. The other possibility is the bacteria itself may have evolved to be better at transmitting.”
The UKHSA said on Thursday that 15 laboratory cases had been confirmed and 12 notifications remained under investigation. So far, 600 meningitis B vaccines have been administered at the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus and more than 6,500 precautionary doses of antibiotics have been issued to students. One school pupil and one university student have died in what officials said on Wednesday was the quickest-growing outbreak they had ever seen.
More than 100 students in Kent were turned away while trying to get a meningitis vaccine after officials closed the queue, the Press Association reported. The University of Kent said it had closed the vaccine queue on its Canterbury campus “due to capacity” because it needed to finish the clinic by 5pm. It will reopen on Friday morning. On Friday, more vaccination centres are due to open across Kent as the government’s immunisation programme expands.
