The UK Health Security Agency has identified Reading Blue Coat school and Highdown secondary school and sixth form centre as the schools attended by pupils receiving treatment for meningitis in the Berkshire outbreak. A student from Henley college in Oxfordshire has died from the infection.
Close contacts of the affected students have been offered antibiotics as a precaution. Dr Rachel Mearkle, a consultant in health protection, said: “We understand that many people will be affected by this sad news and would like to offer our condolences to the friends and family of this student.” She added that the risk to the wider public remains low as meningococcal disease does not spread easily.
The strain of meningitis B in Berkshire is different from the one that caused a major outbreak in Kent in March, which killed two people and hospitalised over a dozen. Between 300 and 400 cases of meningococcal disease are diagnosed in England each year, most commonly in babies, young children, teenagers and young adults.
Henley college expressed condolences and said it is supporting those affected. The MenB vaccine has been offered routinely to babies since 2015 as part of the NHS childhood vaccination programme.
