Kent meningitis outbreak — UKHSA still tracking, 10,000+ contact-traced

[FionaSlotsFan]

The Kent meningitis outbreak that started back in March is still being managed by the UK Health Security Agency — health officials said on Monday that it's still "too early to say" whether the outbreak has peaked or whether a national vaccination programme needs recommending. Contact tracing is past 10,000 people now, predominantly University of Kent students and Canterbury residents linked to the Club Chemistry venue (which closed on 15 March).

UKHSA has been distributing chemoprophylaxis (antibiotics) to identified close contacts and vaccinations were expanded back in mid-March to cover everyone who'd been offered chemoprophylaxis. As of the 20 March update from UKHSA, more than 10,500 doses of antibiotics and 4,500 vaccinations had been given. The numbers will have grown since.

BBC and ITV covered the update yesterday. Nothing actionable for those of us in Scotland directly, but a few of my colleagues have family at UoK and have been asking — sharing in case anyone else here has the same question. UKHSA's blog post from March is still the cleanest summary.

[NewbiePunterNeil]

My niece is in second year at UoK. She had the chemoprophylaxis back in late March, got the MenB vaccine update at the same time. Her cohort has been broadly fine — most of the early infections were students who'd been at Club Chemistry between 5 and 15 March, which is the specific window UKHSA used for chemoprophylaxis eligibility.

The reason UKHSA isn't calling the peak yet, as I understand it, is the disease has a delayed presentation and the contact-tracing pool is still being worked through.

[WeeWinsMorag]

Sad and worrying. The thing that struck me reading the UKHSA blog at the time was how fast they were able to push out the antibiotic supply chain — 10,000+ doses inside about a week. That's impressive logistics for a public health emergency.

For anyone who hasn't had a MenB booster and is going to be living/socialising in Canterbury this summer, worth asking your GP. The free vaccination eligibility has been widened during the outbreak.

[BonusHunterBeth]

The Wikipedia page (yes I checked) has a decent timeline if you want chronology rather than the front-page version. Tl;dr: outbreak detected 11 March, escalation to Major Incident protocols in mid-March, antibiotics + vaccination programme stood up by 20 March, intermittent additional case reports through April and May. Death toll has been kept low which is the headline good news.