Kent meningitis outbreak has been contained, health officials believe | Meningitis

Health authorities increasingly believe they have brought the deadly meningitis outbreak in Kent under control, with no cases emerging that are not linked to the original 20 cases.

In a further boost to efforts to control the infection, the microbe causing it has been identified as a known strain of meningitis B, the Guardian understands.

That should mean the MenB vaccine, which is being offered to 5,000 students living in University of Kent halls in Canterbury, with hundreds more given it on Wednesday, will be a good match.

There is growing confidence among NHS, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and county council public health staff responding to the outbreak that infected people in Kent, many of whom visited a nightclub on 5, 6 or 7 March, were transmitting the disease to anyone outside the area.

A UKHSA spokesperson said: “All cases to date have been linked to the current outbreak in Kent.”

Of the 20 known cases, one fell ill in London and the other in France; but both had recently visited Canterbury.

An official involved in the multi-agency response said: “We may have this under control. There are no cases emerging elsewhere that we know of – no cases that we know of outside the cluster – or not yet.”

“We’re rolling out vaccines and antibiotics and tracing contacts. So there’s nothing we’re not doing.”

An official from a different organization said what they described as the UKHSA’s rapid action following the first warning of the outbreak last weekend had benefited, particularly the urgent provision of antibiotics to people in Canterbury.

Another university in the city confirmed a case of meningitis on Wednesday. The student at Canterbury Christ Church is believed to be a man found at the nightclub, one of 20 known cases. The only known cases so far were from the University of Kent.

Canterbury Christ Church University said in a statement: “We have reached out to support the individual directly and student welfare and support is also reaching out and making themselves available to support other students more widely.

“We have followed UKHSA advice and advised a limited number of close contacts of the individual that they should receive antibiotics as a precaution if they have not already received them.”

Health secretary Wes Streeting has denied stocks of the MenB vaccine are running low after a surge of worried parents wanting to get their children vaccinated. “There is actually plenty of vaccine stock in the country,” he said.

But pharmacy organizations disagreed with his words. “Pharmacies are inundated with requests from anxious patients for the MenB vaccine, which the vast majority of our members across the country do not currently have the stock to afford,” said Olivier Picard, president of the National Pharmacists Association (NPA).

He said the failure of pharmacies to comply with requests for the MenB vaccine had led to the NPA receiving “some reports of harassment and intimidation from a small minority of patients towards pharmacy staff during this period, and this is completely unacceptable”.

Responding to calls from organizations such as meningitis charities and the National Union of Students for under-18s and young adults to be offered the MenB vaccine, Streeting asked the advisory Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization to re-examine whether eligibility, currently limited to babies, should be extended.

He said he would approach potentially broader availability “in an evidence-based way.”

“I don’t want to do this rashly. It’s right that these are clinically driven decisions rather than political decisions,” he said.

The UKHSA issued an urgent warning to all NHS doctors in England on Wednesday, advising them to look for signs of meningitis and wear personal protective equipment before giving antibiotics to patients they suspect have the disease. The disease in the urban outbreak was stated to be “severe with rapid deterioration.”

Streeting emphasized that the risk of catching meningitis from an infected person is very low and depends on close personal contact, such as vaping or sharing drinks or kissing.