Meningitis outbreak

[Flipitoff]

I’m freaking out a bit

DD has been here all day after travelling from uni yesterday. Her housemate is really poorly and now I’ve just seen the news about the meningitis outbreak at her uni.

Her housemate is in the house on her own now - I’ve told DD to call the uni and let them know. Worried that DD has been here with us all day in case she gets sick

I am glad the vaccines are coming to Kent tbh - as long as the students haven't already run home, this is where they are needed. I am trying to get one for DD who was on a train back from London on the 7th and the kids in her carriage were all going to Club Chemistry. Because that isn't "direct" enough we aren't having much luck.

Worrying to me that one of the girls who was hospitalised worked in McDonalds after going out on the Thursday before collapsing at home. She is fine now but between that and the bar staff at the club there could have been at least 2 spreaders. I think we will feel better in a couple of weeks when the incubation period has passed but it has highlighted a gap in the vaccination programme.

So your Dc will have had 3x Meningitis c as a baby and the MenACWY in y 9 or 10. They are the same age as my eldest. This gives protection against developing sepsis but NOT against MenB itself (acc to my GP this morning).

If your DC is a Kent student they are being recalled to have antibiotics if a close contact and also to have the vaccine as of today.

I know this because close friend’s child is a Kent 2nd year, so this is uptodate info. Call the uni if this is your position.

If your child is NOT a Kent student, then watch for any illness and monitor them following the govt website advice. Present at A&E if you have any doubts.

I have a DC at uni in London so we are doing the same. However - unless your DC has snogged, shared dishes/vapes/drinks [as they were doing at the Chemistry Club] they are very very low risk of contracting anything. If you can get to London, they appear to have plenty of the vaccine available at various Boots there [this may change]. You can book them in for the first jab within a week. £110 per jab (2 needed 4 weeks apart). My eldest is booked in next week and will be booking my youngest in after his A levels so he is protected when he goes to uni in September.

Whilst I appreciate the line is that it is ‘rare’… it was clearly considered to be a big enough risk that they introduced it in 2015 for baby vaccinations, so I’ll be protecting my DC.

So if the contact has to be super close not just breathing the same air, and the superspreader spread it on multiple days was it a bar person making drinks then customers put it to their lips? Otherwise how on earth could there have been a superspreader if it’s spread only by very close contact but multiple non connected people contracted it? Someone not washing their hands and touching surfaces? Who knows.

Boots don’t have stock in my area which is over 500 miles away from Kent so they are diverting it to where it’s needed.

@Wipeywipey can you at least get the antibiotics

I don't necessarily mind them diverting where it's needed but it's annoyed me that Wes streeting doesn't seem to.undrstwnd this and is giving out wrong info

@CautiousLurker2 have you actually managed to confirm the booking because I saw appts.avialable but when I went to book they weren't free

Only if you have symptoms - thankfully we don't but feels like we are being told to wait and see rather than a preventative approach.

It’s a tricky one because the last thing they will want to do is make a bad situation worse by provoking antibiotic resistance in a MenB strain by overprescribing.

Boots website has paused vaccine bookings.

This is what I don’t understand either

@Wipeywipey my understanding in Kent is all students have been offered preventative antibiotics s ?

I've found personal hygiene amongst teens quite shocking so please drill into your teens cough onto arm or into their t shirts ! Try and catch sneezes and welcome fresh air.

I just can't envision vape sharing tom such a degree that it's sparked this massive outbreak.

But presumably NOT MenB which is what the issue is

Yes, booked, paid for and confirmation email received. I am pragmatic that it might be cancelled beforehand though, so keeping my fingers crossed at this point.

It’s not airborne, it’s more intimate/body fluid contact that spreads it.

So, say, someone has contracted it on holiday (France?), come home to their college flatmates (6-8 in halls flats), perhaps they’re dating within their halls so some sex/kissing passes it on; they then share food in the kitchen, tasting from the same spoon, using poorly washed crockery/cutlery/glasses and you now have 4-6 possible carriers. They go to the club. A couple of them vape, the others buy a cheap bottle of bubbles and other buy beers. They all pass the vapes and bottles around and swig without wiping/disinfecting. Each of those goes on to share more vapes, cigarettes or snog randoms on the dance floor or by the loos. The snoggees then go home, sharing bottled water in the taxi to knock back the paracetamol… right there you have a chain of dozens of people.

It won’t be bar staff unless they are also snogging in the alley outside ot taking a punter home - which put them at risk of contracting it, rather than spreading it.

But a group of friends didn’t get ill, or people known to each other they are random strangers and these people are not sharing vapes with each other. Friends share vapes and cigarettes, young people don’t hand their vape over to a total stranger any more than I gave my cigarette to a stranger when I was that age. So how can vape sharing be the case of this outbreak

One person gets it from a vape. They go home to a shared flat and maybe share utensils/ a glass. Or they go on and snog someone else. Who then gets it and so on.

A ton of vapour coming directly from the lungs is surely the easiest way for it to spread? It's a disgusting habit.

Is that what happened in Kent I thought they were saying it’s likely a superspreader over 3 dates at the nightclub? If it was over multiple days it can’t be a customer they don’t usually go to a nightclub 3 nights in a row

No this is not how it’s spread

You only need one person from night 1 to go again on night 2, or a flatmate of someone on night 1 to go on night 2.

Provisionally they are saying 10 of the 20 cases were in the nightclub.

No doubt lots of thought is going into how and why this has developed like it has. In France which experienced a MenB spike in 2025 there was thought to be some co-infection with influenza - so a person having both flu virus and meningococcus in their respiratory system might sneeze or cough the germs out, meaning contact didn’t have to be as close as usual to spread the meningococcus.

https://www.euronews.com/health/2025/03/15/france-urges-meningitis-vaccination-amid-warning-of-particularly-high-number-of-cases

I have three children. Two at senior schools in Canterbury.

This is what's troubling me. The poor Year 13 girl at QE in Faversham is unlikely to have been closely enough linked to a University of Kent student, and a Christ Church student and students at Ashford and Thanet schools to be sharing drinks or vapes. It seems unlikely.

I think you are possibly being naive - the y13s will undoubtedly have been flirting with the older students. They need over 18s to buy alcohol at the bar and all nearly 18 year olds like the attention of older boys. They only had to sit with them and sip a drink from a shared bottle of beer to be at risk.

These girls may be angels with their parents present, but they all have their heads turned in this environment. I remember being the same.

Surely drops of spit carrying it people laughing coughing etc in a night club .
Sneezing and in anyway expelling dangerous droplets ?