Kent meningitis outbreak appears to peak at 29 cases
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- UKHSA reported the Kent outbreak total reached 29 people — 18 confirmed and 11 probable, with 13 confirmed as meningitis B — after only two new cases emerged on Friday, a sharp slowdown from the rapid early growth that prompted the alarm.
- Health officials have administered 2,360 vaccinations and distributed 9,840 doses of antibiotics as of Thursday 5pm, and UKHSA said the Bexsero vaccine being offered should protect against the outbreak strain — a group B meningococcus (sequence type 485, clonal complex ST-41/44) similar to ones circulating in the UK for about five years.
- Prof Robin May, UKHSA's chief scientific officer, said full genome sequencing is underway to test whether the MenB bug has become more transmissible, noting the bacteria's genome is "about 100 times bigger than Covid" and the analysis will take time.
- Juliette Kenny, a teenager, died on 14 March — one day after developing symptoms of vomiting and cheek discoloration — and her father Michael Kenny said the family is now campaigning for routine MenB vaccination access for teenagers and young people.
- Prof Brendan Wren at LSHTM said genetic analysis "suggests that the strain has not mutated into a more invasive strain," while Dr Michael Head of Southampton said it is "plausible that we are seeing the tail end of this outbreak" given the contact tracing and vaccine coverage.
- Prof Paul Hunter of UEA cautioned that with an incubation period of up to 10 days, secondary cases could still emerge among people who did not attend the initial super-spreading event but caught the infection from someone who did.
Why it matters: This Kent outbreak infected 29 people in days — versus the typical one meningitis case per day in the UK — and scientists are still running full genome sequencing to determine what changed about the bacteria. With 2,360 already vaccinated but the 10-day incubation window still open, Prof Hunter warned secondary cases remain possible.
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