Meningitis circumstances rise by greater than a 3rd in a day to 27 as Kent outbreak that left two useless spreads to an animation school in London

The number of cases of meningitis linked to the Kent outbreak rose to 27 today as health bosses confirmed a first case in London and the vaccine rollout continued.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced total cases had increased by seven in its latest update today – up from yesterday’s total of 20, and Tuesday’s of 15.

Officials said some 15 laboratory cases had been confirmed and 12 notifications remained under investigation, bringing the total to 27. The death toll remains at two.

The UKHSA said cases have been confirmed in students at four Kent schools – and another at a ‘higher education institution’ in London, directly linked to the outbreak.

This was later revealed to be Escape Studios, a specialist college next to The O2 in North Greenwich, which offers degrees in animation and games. It comes as:

• European health chiefs put doctors on alert to watch out for cases across the EU;
• Experts look at whether the bacteria has become able to transmit more easily; and
• A Kent health official said he cannot confirm the outbreak has been contained.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) confirmed it is ‘monitoring the situation through event-based surveillance’ and urged doctors to ask patients showing meningitis symptoms whether they had recently travelled to Kent.

But the body also reassured the public that the risk of meningitis to the general population in the European Union and European Economic Area is ‘very low’.

This follows French authorities saying a person who was admitted to hospital with meningitis in France with links to the Kent outbreak is now in a ‘stable’ condition.

The ECDC said an average of about 2,000 meningitis cases are reported to it each year across the region and the disease is fatal for around 10 per cent of these.

In 2024 there were 2,263 cases reported across the EU and EEA including 202 fatalities; while in 2023 there were 1,895 cases including 200 deaths.

Meningitis B – the strain involved in the outbreak in Canterbury – accounted for 55 per cent of cases in the continent in 2024 and 57 per cent in 2023, the ECDC added.

An ECDC statement said: ‘Clinicians should be aware of the possibility of meningitis in returning travellers and include travel history in their assessment of invasive meningococcal disease cases, particularly regarding travelling to the Kent region.

‘Healthcare workers in EU/EEA countries managing suspected or confirmed cases should follow required infection prevention and control protocols, while countries are encouraged to continue surveillance, including molecular surveillance and antibiotic susceptibility testing, to support outbreak control.’

It added: ‘ECDC is in contact with UK and EU/EEA national authorities in relation to this event and is monitoring the situation through event-based surveillance and integrated epidemiological and genomic surveillance, and is performing regular evaluations.’

Kent County Council’s director of public health, Dr Anjan Ghosh, said it cannot yet be confirmed that the deadly outbreak of meningitis in Kent has been contained.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We’re not in the position yet to say that definitively, that it’s been contained.

‘If you see the daily reporting that’s going on, there are more and more cases being reported, but these cases all relate more or less to that same period of time when the initial exposure happened.

‘We are looking at what’s called secondary transmission, so that’s a case that’s then transmitted to another couple of people. We need to rule that out before we can say it’s definitely contained.’

Dr Ghosh also said there was ‘no reason to be anxious’, adding: ‘This is a disease. It’s not Covid. It doesn’t spread the same way that Covid or measles spread.

‘It spreads through close, protracted contact, intimate contact. So, it’s basically people in households, sharing cups, kissing, intimate contact, those kind of things.

‘So, there’s no need to panic or get anxious. People just need to go about their ordinary lives the way they have been.

‘However, if people have signs of meningitis, then they need to act fast. Or if they or anyone they know has been a contact in the same way I said, a close contact of a case of meningitis or suspected case of meningitis, they need to get the prophylaxis (antibiotics) as soon as possible.’

Trish Mannes, UKHSA regional deputy director for the South East, said today: ‘Two doses of the MenB vaccine helps protect individuals against meningococcal B disease.

‘It is important to know that the MenB vaccine does not protect against all strains of meningococcal disease, nor against all infections that can cause meningitis. It also does not prevent the bacteria from being carried and spread in the community.

‘It is therefore still hugely important that people are aware of the signs and symptoms of invasive meningococcal disease, and that they seek immediate medical attention if they or anyone they know develops these signs and symptoms.

‘If you have been offered preventative antibiotics, it is strongly recommended that you take them promptly. If you are a student at the University of Kent who is eligible but has since returned home, contact your local GP, who will be able to provide advice and prescribe the appropriate treatment.’

Ms Mannes also said before today’s case update that she was ‘expecting a small number of additional cases’ to be reported.

Speaking to BBC Radio Kent, she said the outbreak appears to be ‘largely a single transmission event… but because of the incubation period of this disease we will continue to get a trickle of cases’.

Ms Mannes added that UKHSA was seeing a ‘real peak around 13 March of cases presenting’, and no data suggested any further transmission event.

And an Escape Studios spokesperson said: ‘We have been made aware that an individual attending Escape Studios had been admitted to hospital after contracting meningitis.

‘We understand that the individual is now recovering well, and our Student Services Team is offering support. This case is linked to the wider situation currently being managed in Kent.

‘We have been working closely with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and local public health teams since being notified.

‘This is a public health matter that is not specific to Escape Studios, and the response is being led by the UKHSA. As part of their standard protocol, UKHSA is carrying out contact tracing – close contacts of cases are being contacted directly by UKHSA and provided with advice on what to do next.’

Before the latest figures were announced this morning, Professor Robin May, chief scientific officer at the UKHSA, told BBC Breakfast: ‘I would say in outbreaks like this, you would typically expect a small increase in numbers still to go so I suspect that number will go up slightly.’

He described the outbreak, linked to Club Chemistry nightclub in Canterbury, as ‘very unusual’, adding: ‘So typically, you would expect to see sporadic cases of meningitis, typically individual patients. Most days, actually, we would see one in the UK. This is obviously a much larger number.

‘What is particularly remarkable about this case, and unexpected about this case, is the large number of cases all originating from what seems to be a single event.

‘There are two possible reasons for that. 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.’

To date, 600 meningitis B vaccines have been administered at the University of Kent in Canterbury 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 also been given out as a precaution, the university said.

In total, around 5,000 university campus students are eligible for a jab and are being urged to come forward for the immediate protection offered by antibiotics and longer-term protection from the vaccine. 

It comes after one school pupil, 18-year-old Juliette Kenny, and one university student aged 21 died – and 18 more cases were being investigated by the UKHSA, with some young people placed in induced comas. 

Professor May said the bacteria which can cause meningitis can be transmitted by sharing utensils, cups and vapes, adding: ‘So this is a bacteria that is actually quite widespread.

‘So a large number of us carry this, about 10 per cent of people my age, slightly higher in younger people carry this bacteria at the back of their throat anyway, and obviously, the vast majority of us don’t have any problem with disease, but in some cases it can cause severe disease.

‘And it is transmitted by this relatively close contact. So it’s transmitted by things like saliva and kissing in particular, but also sharing of utensils, sharing of cups or vapes or those kind of things.’

Professor May added: ‘Although it’s in the throat, it is not, for example, like Covid or flu. It’s not a respiratory disease in the sense of spreading very easily through the air. It does not survive very long on surfaces.

‘So people do not need to be concerned about things like public transport, for instance, where you know potentially you might come into contact with somebody with that in your train carriage or your bus.

‘But unless you’re in quite close contact for an extended period of time with them, you are not at risk from them.’

Consultant virologist Dr Chris Smith also told BBC Breakfast that many people can test positive for bacteria that are linked to meningitis, but usually only a small number of people become infected.

He said: ‘What’s unusual about this case is we’ve gone from something which we know happens but doesn’t normally translate into severe clinical disease, suddenly, with one event, translating into a lot of people who’ve developed the invasive infection. 

‘That’s what the genetic sequence that will currently be going on, looking at what’s the code behind this bacterium, what’s in that that might endow it with these additional superpowers that’s turned it into this more invasive form of meningitis?’

The UKHSA issued an alert for the NHS across England yesterday 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.

Canterbury Christ Church University, also in Kent, confirmed a meningitis case among its students yesterday, 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 from March 5 to 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 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.

Meanwhile a campaign group said the meningitis outbreak should act as a wake-up call as the number of infectious disease incidents increase following cuts to aid budgets and vaccination programmes.

The organisation – ‘Healthy World, Secure Britain’ – claims rates of tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, Mpox, dengue fever, measles and meningitis have increased post-Covid, while the UK and the world have cut funding for global health initiatives.

Dr Arshad Rizvi, a London GP with a special interest in global health and infectious disease, said the current meningitis outbreak has ‘brought into sharp focus the dangers of infectious diseases and how we must be ever vigilant’.

He added: ‘Sadly, they are becoming increasingly common as governments across the world cut health aid budgets and vaccination programmes.

‘Governments are under enormous budgetary pressure to reduce aid that helps tackle these diseases at source, but we would argue that is a false economy.

‘Populations are so connected now because of worldwide travel that inevitably health problems abroad are imported back into this country.’

Yesterday, 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.