Health Secretary to visit Kent vaccination centre after meningitis outbreak

Health Secretary Wes Streeting is to visit a meningitis vaccination centre in Kent on Thursday after a deadly outbreak of the infection.

The University of Kent said 600 meningitis B (menB) vaccines had been administered on Wednesday, after hundreds of students joined a queue outside the campus sports centre.

Those who have received the jab will need to return for their second dose after a minimum of four weeks, while 6,500 antibiotics have been given out as a precaution, the university said.

About 5,000 students from the Canterbury campus of the University of Kent will be offered the jab, alongside courses of antibiotics.

It comes after one school pupil and one university student died and 18 more cases were being investigated by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) following an outbreak of meningitis linked to a nightclub in Canterbury.

The UKHSA issued an alert for the NHS across England on Wednesday on signs and symptoms of meningitis to look out for, though this does not signal the outbreak is going to spread nationwide.

The alert said the illness being seen in the Kent outbreak “has been severe with rapid deterioration” and urges clinical staff to take infection control measures in the period before patients are put on antibiotics, such as face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE).

It urges doctors to have a “high index of suspicion where a young person aged 16 to 30 attends with consistent signs or symptoms” of the bug.

Students from the university halls in Canterbury who have already left campus will be able to get a menB jab from their GP, according to the Department of Health.

Five new cases of meningitis were announced by the UKHSA on Wednesday morning, taking the total number being investigated by health officials to 20.

Of these, nine cases have been confirmed in the lab and 11 remain under investigation.

Six of the confirmed cases have been confirmed as the menB strain.

Canterbury Christ Church University, also in Kent, confirmed a meningitis case among its students on Wednesday, meaning confirmed or suspected cases have been reported at two universities and five schools.

GPs across the country have also been told to prescribe antibiotics to anyone who visited Club Chemistry in Canterbury from March 5-7, plus students from the University of Kent.

This is to ensure anyone who has left campus can make sure they get the right treatment.

The number of cases is expected to rise because the incubation period for the infection to when symptoms appear is between two and 14 days.

The UKHSA stressed there are plenty of NHS stocks of menB vaccines after pharmacies reported they were struggling to obtain stock for people who want to pay privately.

All reported cases so far have a link to Kent, according to the UKHSA.

Meanwhile, French authorities said a person who was admitted to hospital with meningitis in France with links to the Kent outbreak is now in a “stable” condition.

The French ministry of health told the Press Association no other cases of meningitis linked to the outbreak in Kent have been reported in France.

On Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer expressed his “deepest condolences” for the friends and family of the two people who had died following the outbreak in Kent during Prime Minister’s Questions.