Sporadic ‘family’ clusters of meningitis linked to Kent outbreak may seem in different components of UK over subsequent month, consultants warn as circumstances rise once more to 29

Sporadic household clusters of meningitis could appear over the next month in other parts of Britain as university students travel home from Kent for the Easter holidays.

Kent County Council’s director of public health Dr Anjan Ghosh told a briefing in Canterbury today that three scenarios are being looked at over the next four weeks.

The most likely is that students who have travelled away from Kent will ‘incubate’ the bug and there could be ‘household’ cases elsewhere – although Dr Ghosh said these would be ‘containable’ and urged people to carry on with their lives.

It comes as the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the number of cases linked to the outbreak has reached 29, up from 27 previously. Some 18 cases have been confirmed, alongside a further 11 ‘probable cases’ – all with links to Kent.

Dr Ghosh told the briefing that three ‘rough’ scenarios are being modelled for the next four weeks, as ‘that’s the time it takes for this whole thing really subside’.

The first scenario is that the outbreak remains contained in Kent.

‘Second scenario is that there are people who’ve left, they’ve gone off campus, and many of them don’t stay in Kent, they go and stay elsewhere,’ Dr Ghosh said. 

‘They were incubating when they left, and then they become cases, and there are small household, sporadic clusters outside of Kent.’

He stressed these cases would be ‘containable’.

The third scenario, described by Dr Ghosh as the ‘worst-case scenario’, would result in another cluster outside of Kent.

However, he said this is ‘highly unlikely’, with the second scenario ‘most likely to be the case’.

Thirteen of the 18 cases confirmed by UKHSA are menB. All cases have required hospital admission.

Dr Ghosh stressed that meningitis is much more difficult to catch then Covid, saying: ‘Meningitis is not spread the same way that Covid is spread, or measles is spread.

‘This requires protracted close contact in order for it to be spread, and that usually is in a household context or in a dormitory context.

‘It requires close contact in the form of kissing, sharing utensils, things like that.

‘So in general, if you’re just coming across someone who is positive, you’re very unlikely to get the disease from them, the way it was with Covid.’

He urged anyone identified as a close contact by the UKHSA to come forward for preventative antibiotics.

He added: ‘There’s no reason for people to not be going about leading their normal lives.’

Earlier, the family of a teenager who died from meningitis in the Kent outbreak described their ‘immeasurable loss’.

Juliette Kenny, 18, died on March 14, one day after first showing symptoms – which were vomiting and discolouration in her cheeks, her father Michael said.

Mr Kenny said his daughter had been ‘fit, healthy and strong’ before her death – and had completed the practical assessment for her PE A-level on March 12.

The family are campaigning for teenagers and young people to be routinely given access to the meningitis B vaccination.

Juliette, who was described by her father as having a ‘beautifully positive energy’, is one of two students who have died following the outbreak of meningitis.

This morning, hundreds of students on the University of Kent campus queued for a vaccine.

More than 100 students were told to leave the queue by staff yesterday afternoon after the university said ‘nursing staff are unable to see any more people within the clinic’s remaining opening hours today’.

By 8.45am today, around 700 staff and students were in the queue, according to estimates by reporters at the scene.

One student near the front said she had joined the queue at 7.55am. The clinic is operating from 9am to 5pm, with students told to join the queue by 2pm.

The chief scientific officer of the UKHSA, Professor Robin May, said a ‘staffing issue’ led to people being turned away yesterday.

He told Times Radio: ‘Yesterday, it was a staffing issue. To emphasise – we are not short of vaccine. Yesterday, demand exceeded the ability of staff to fulfil it within the time allocated.’

Deputy chief executive of NHS Kent and Medway Ed Waller said there are ‘plenty’ of doses of vaccine available in Kent and the advice to people queuing is to ‘just think about where they go’, with other clinics open.

‘The other two sites are operating – they’re less busy than this one. So, we will see as many of the people who are in the queue as we can today.’

When asked about the closing times of the vaccine centres, he said: ‘We are trying to maximise the capacity and the opening hours of all the sites.

‘So we are in the process of operationalising as much capacity as we can.’

He said a request was made today for a further 5,000 doses of vaccine.

He said: ‘6,500 doses of vaccine have been delivered to Kent and Medway from the national stock. There was a request today for a further 5,000.’

Elsewhere, Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the ‘peak’ of the initial meningitis ‘superspreading event’ at Club Chemistry in Canterbury may have passed.

However, secondary cases affecting people who were not infected at the nightclub, but caught the illness from someone who was there, are still a possibility, he said.

‘The incubation period, though a little uncertain, ranges from two to 10 days so I think we can be fairly certain that the peak from the initial superspreading event will have already passed.

‘The question remains whether there will be any secondary cases i.e. any cases that didn’t get their infection from the nightclub but from someone else who did attend.

‘Hopefully the antibiotic and vaccine will prevent those but it is still a possibility.

‘Even if we do see secondary cases, I doubt there will be as many as in the primary wave, though cannot be certain.’

Professor May told Times Radio experts are still trying to work out if the meningitis bug has become more transmissible in the recent cases.

The UKHSA has said the Bexsero vaccine for menB used on the NHS should offer protection against the strain identified, and it published details of an ‘initial genetic analysis’ of the strain.

Similar strains have been circulating in the UK for around five years but more detailed analysis is required, the UKHSA said, as it invited researchers to look at its code in detail.

Asked if such an outbreak could happen again, Professor May said: ‘Well obviously that’s something we’re very conscious of.

‘We’ll be mindful both of the possibility of this particular strain, for example, re-emerging in the future, but also general principles that we’ll learn about the bacteria.

‘As with all pathogens, there’s always much more we can learn, and by learning more about how they work, we hope to develop better ways to prevent them causing disease in the future.’

As of 5pm yesterday, some 2,360 vaccinations have been given and 9,840 doses of antibiotics to those affected by the outbreak.

Professor Martin Maiden, professor of molecular epidemiology at the University of Oxford, said: ‘The serogroup B meningococcal isolate (1926231) from Kent is a novel, and at the time of writing unique genotype within a well-known ‘family’ of meningococci. It is predicted to be covered by both available ‘Men B’ vaccines.

‘Current information is compatible with this particularly invasive variant arising from circulating isolates recently, followed by local rapid spread.

‘Previous experience suggests that the spread of this variant will likely be limited by its invasive capacity, but more information and careful surveillance are necessary to confirm this. As other genomes become available more inference will be possible.’