The number of cases of meningitis being investigated in Kent increased to 20 today as health officials battle to halt Britain’s worst outbreak in a generation.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) revealed this morning that the total had risen from the 15 declared yesterday, amid fears the death toll of two could also rise.
Of the new 20 total, nine cases have been confirmed in the lab and 11 remain under investigation. Six of the confirmed cases have also been confirmed as meningitis B.
The National Pharmacy Association industry group revealed this morning that there was now currently no stock of meningitis B vaccines for people to pay for privately.
A national incident has been declared after a grammar school pupil and a university student died – and cases outside of Kent were reported in London and France .
A baby is fighting for her life in hospital in the capital after becoming unwell on March 4, just days before the cluster of meningitis cases emerged in Canterbury.
Nine-month-old Nala-Rose Fletcher, from Folkestone, is in intensive care at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, as doctors warned she faces ‘life-changing’ surgeries.
Confirming the updated total number of cases this morning, a UKHSA spokesman said: ‘All those affected who are currently linked to the outbreak are young adults.
‘UKHSA is aware of a baby with confirmed meningococcal group B infection who is not currently linked to the outbreak but UKHSA will continue to investigate this case.’
The outbreak linked to Club Chemistry nightclub has already killed sixth-form pupil Juliette Kenny, 18, and a 21-year-old University of Kent student. Experts fear club events may have acted as ‘super spreaders’ and cases could rise in the coming days.
Nine-month-old Nala-Rose Fletcher is in intensive care at Evelina London Children’s Hospital
Juliette Kenny, 18, died on Saturday surrounded by her family after falling victim to meningitis
Students queue for antibiotics outside the University of Kent in Canterbury yesterday
More than a dozen people are in hospital and there are fears the number could rise as it can take up to 14 days for symptoms to appear and clubgoers continued to socialise before the outbreak was made public.
Olivier Picard, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, revealed today that there was currently no stock of meningitis B vaccines for people to pay for privately.
He told told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that pharmacies were used to ‘bridging the gap between what the NHS offers and what patients want’.
Mr Picard said: ‘Unfortunately, that supply has run out, and most of our distributors, wholesalers have no stock. And whilst we’re hearing that there may be some stock in the system, it is taking its time to come into our fridges. There’s no date of resupply.
‘Overnight, between sort of the hours of 11pm and 6am this morning, I have received over 100 appointments through our booking system in my pharmacies for vaccine we simply don’t have no idea when they will be available.
Pharmacies branded ‘totally immoral’ for vaccine price increase
Wes Streeting
Pharmacies have been branded ‘totally immoral’ for cashing in on the meningitis outbreak by charging hundreds of pounds for jabs as stocks run low.
Chemists report running out of vaccines after two youngsters died from the infection and another 11 were hospitalised after falling ill over the past week.
Babies can get the meningitis B vaccine on the NHS but children born before 2015 missed out unless they paid privately.
Early testing has revealed the cases linked to the nightclub Club Chemistry in Canterbury, Kent, are MenB, the deadlier form of the infection, sparking a rush for the vaccine from university and school students.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting urged the public not to be ‘ripped off’ by paying over the odds for a jab that will be offered for free on the NHS to those who need it if officials decide it is necessary.
A snap poll of 300 pharmacies by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) yesterday found 87 per cent have seen ‘considerable’ rises in requests for the jab.
This is ‘far exceeding’ the supply available from wholesalers, it warned. Some pharmacies received 30 to 40 requests for bookings yesterday morning as well as pre-emptive requests for antibiotics.
It comes as the UK Health Security Agency said it will launch a ‘small targeted’ vaccination programme due to the ‘severity of the situation’.
Mr Streeting told the Commons he has asked the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises ministers, to urgently review the eligibility criteria for the jab.
Labour MP Danny Beales said: ‘Obviously, parents and students are very concerned. There’s reports online that private pharmacies are selling vaccinations for several hundreds of pounds.
‘Can the Secretary of State assure this house that the NHS and Department of Health are monitoring any possible price gouging around vaccinations?’
Mr Streeting responded: ‘To price gouge and profiteer in this situation would be a totally immoral and irresponsible thing to do. We’re not advising people to pay for a vaccine.
‘I understand people may wish to make individual choices but I would urge people not to allow themselves to be ripped off by people trying to exploit understandable public anxiety.’
‘We are at the mercy of the manufacturers and the wholesalers to supply our pharmacies, and our patients are worried. They want their children vaccinated.’
He described it as an ‘impossible situation’.
Amish Patel, a pharmacist from Kent, told BBC News: ‘We’ve seen a huge increase in inquiries for the meningitis vaccine, from having maybe one or two calls a week at best to now 10 to 15 calls in a day.
‘It’s a huge, huge increase. Currently we have no stock of meningitis vaccines left and the bigger problem is we can’t also order any more.
‘All the wholesalers are also showing no stock and to add further on to that, we don’t know when stock is coming back in. At the moment, it’s a case of just keep on refreshing our order pages and seeing if stock is back available.’
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told BBC Breakfast this morning that his ‘heart goes out to the families of those two young people who have tragically died’, adding the cases ‘throw into sharp relief how serious’ meningitis can be
He insisted that the general risk to the public is ‘very low’ despite the disease being ‘extremely serious’, explaining that the disease is spread through close personal contact such as sharing drinks or vapes and kissing.
Mr Streeting said health officials are not concerned about transmission between people sharing more general spaces such as trains, adding: ‘We’re proactively managing it.’
A normal year in the UK would see 350 cases of meningitis – around one per day, according to Mr Streeting.
So he is expecting cases in other parts of the country, and these will be examined to check any link to the Kent outbreak, which he described as ‘unprecedented’.
Trish Mannes, UKHSA regional deputy director for the South East, said today: ‘Around 2,500 doses of antibiotics have now been administered across sites in Kent and we continue to encourage close contacts to come forward for the treatment.
‘This includes those offered at the University of Kent and anyone who visited Club Chemistry between March 5 to 7.
‘This is the main intervention that will help protect people and halt the spread of the outbreak.
‘As a further precaution and together with the NHS, we are beginning to roll out a targeted MenB vaccination programme.
‘This will initially be offered to 5,000 university of Kent students resident at the Canterbury campus, with the possibility that it may be extended, as it is kept under continual review.
‘If you think you may have symptoms of meningitis, don’t hesitate to seek medical help by contacting your GP or calling NHS 111. Seeking early treatment can save lives.’
The UKHSA also insisted antibiotics ‘remain the most effective treatment to limit the spread’ of meningitis.
It said: ‘GPs across the country will today be advised to prescribe antibiotics to anyone who visited Club Chemistry between 5 to 7 March and to University of Kent students, if they have been asked to seek preventative treatment.
‘This is so that anyone who has travelled home, or away from Kent, can easily access this important preventative treatment close to them.
‘Given the severity of the outbreak, and as an additional precautionary measure, a targeted vaccination programme will begin, starting with students that are residents of the Canterbury campus halls of residence at the University of Kent who will be contacted directly.
‘Initially, it’s expected that up to 5,000 students will be contacted and offered the vaccine. UKHSA will continue to assess ongoing risk to other populations and the programme may be extended.’
Nala-Rose’s parents, Danielle Trott and Nick Fletcher, said she had been vaccinated, but they do not know which strain she has contracted, adding that they had not been in Canterbury before she fell ill.
They added: ‘Nothing can truly prepare you for the pain and fear that comes with what we’ve been living through, and are still living through.
‘Nala-Rose is still very poorly and remains in intensive care. We already know she will be left with lasting difficulties for the rest of her life, and that’s something we’re only beginning to come to terms with.’
Club Chemistry in Canterbury on Monday, which has been linked to the meningitis outbreak
The UKHSA came under fire in the House of Commons for its slow response and handling of the crisis, which has been traced to events at the popular student nightclub between March 5 and 7.
Dr Thomas Waite, deputy chief medical officer for England, said yesterday: ‘This is by far the quickest growing outbreak I’ve ever seen in my career, and I think probably any of us have seen of meningitis for a very long time.
‘While it remains an outbreak that is having its consequences in Kent, it is obviously of national significance.’
UKHSA chief executive Susan Hopkins added: ‘This looks like a super spreader event with ongoing spread within the halls of residents in the universities. There will have been some parties particularly around this so there will have been lots of social mixing.
‘I can’t yet say where the initial infection came from, how it’s got into this cohort, and why it’s created such an explosive amount of infections.
Author Michael Rosen – whose son died from meningitis – urges Wes Streeting to ‘look again’ at vaccine rollout
By ED HOLT
Eddie Rosen, who died from meningitis
Author Michael Rosen’s son Eddie died from meningitis in 1999 having complained of flu-like symptoms before his death. He sent him to bed with paracetamol and he found him dead the next morning.
The strain that killed Eddie was meningitis C and Mr Rosen said he had not been vaccinated because it was not widely offered in the UK at the time.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain today: ‘Nobody was being vaccinated back then. At that point it had just been developed and it had been around for a bit but there was a view that it wasn’t cost effective and, to put it crudely, not enough people were dying.
Author Michael Rosen
‘I went onto the radio that morning talking about it on the Today programme and the chief medical officer was quite abrupt – he said: ‘I’m not going to be bumped into administrating the MenC vaccine’.
‘But the vaccine came in within the year in 1999 after Eddie died, so I like to think Eddie was a contributing factor to everyone getting the vaccine.’
Speaking about whether history is repeating itself in 2026 with only children born since 2015 having had the MenB vaccine, Mr Rosen said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation ‘didn’t want to give the adolescent programme because it wasn’t cost effective and the MenB vaccine was less effective’.
He continued: ‘So they aren’t saying it’s not effective, they’re saying its less effective – but Wes Streeting is administrating it so obviously they think there is some effectiveness.
‘It’s what you might call an immunity gap because people were given it as babies now, but there’s a gap now with anyone older than 11 has not had any MenB vaccine and people are rushing to get it from pharmacies but people are running out.’
In a message to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Mr Rosen said: ‘Have a look again at this business of inoculating people with the MenB vaccine. If it’s less effective, it doesn’t mean it’s not effective. If you’re giving the people the vaccine now, should there be a roll out programme for everyone in that immunity gap so look at that again?’
‘I can say that, in my 35 years working in medicine, in healthcare and hospitals, this is the most cases I’ve seen in a single weekend with this type of infection.
‘It’s the explosive nature that is unprecedented here – the number of cases in such a short space of time.
‘Sadly, meningitis with meningococcal bacteria has got a case fatality rate anywhere between one in 20 to actually one in five people, depending on their underlying immune status.’
The declaration of a national incident allows authorities and emergency services to better co-ordinate their responses.
Louise Jones-Roberts, the owner of Club Chemistry, said a UKHSA employee alerted her to the outbreak on Instagram only on Sunday after she had unwittingly opened the doors as normal over the weekend, welcoming hundreds of revellers.
She said she was bracing herself for a ‘second wave’, amid fears that people visiting the popular venue last week may become infected.
Ms Jones-Roberts told the Daily Mail: ‘We assumed the case related to this weekend just gone, it was only when I pushed them quite a lot that they clarified that it actually dated back to March 5.’
She has closed Club Chemistry until further notice.
Ms Jones-Roberts said all 94 of her staff had been given the drugs after one employee was admitted to hospital with meningitis on Sunday.
The club was alerted that infected students had been at the venue and has been working with officials to trace more than 2,000 revellers who may have been exposed.
Student Ingi Pickering, 22, who queued for antibiotics after socialising over the weekend, said she would have ‘stayed in’ if the public had been alerted when the first cases emerged.
She added: ‘The initial communication was awful.’
MPs questioned why the public were warned of the outbreak only on Sunday evening – two days after the first case emerged – while schools with infected pupils were told only when they opened on Monday.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he was ‘confident’ the UKHSA acted as quickly and as comprehensively as possible but promised to look at the ‘handling of the UKHSA response at every point’ once the crisis is over.
He added: ‘This is an unprecedented outbreak. It is also a rapidly developing situation.’
Mr Streeting said French authorities had alerted the UKHSA to a confirmed case in a student who had attended the University of Kent.
Four schools across Kent now have confirmed cases and hundreds of people are being offered antibiotics as an immediate treatment.
All reported cases so far have a link to Kent, according to the UKHSA.
Laboratory scientists are urgently trying to work out if the spread is caused by a possible mutant strain of MenB.
All 5,000 students living at the University of Kent’s Canterbury halls are now being urged to collect emergency antibiotics.
The preventive drug had initially been reserved for students who lived in two specific blocks at the campus as well as anyone who had visited a local night club earlier this month.
Officials fighting to contain the deadly disease made 11,000 doses of the antibiotics available to all resident students at the campus yesterday.
Due to the severity of the outbreak, a targeted vaccination programme for students living in halls will also be rolled out over the coming days.
A spokesman for the university said: ‘We have contacted all students today to explain that, following advice from public health colleagues, students living in our on-campus university accommodation are being offered precautionary antibiotics.’
They can collect these from the Senate building on the Canterbury campus which has been dishing out doses since Monday.
It comes as a fourth school in the county was put on alert due to a suspected case amid fears the outbreak, which has already claimed two young lives, could spread further.
Highworth Grammar School in Ashford is the latest to confirm a case after a year 13 pupil was admitted to hospital with suspected meningitis.
Both Norton Knatchbull School, Ashford, and Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, Canterbury, each have a student already in hospital with the infection.
Anyone who encountered someone with meningitis, as well as those who live on campus or attended Club Chemistry in Canterbury on March 5, 6 or 7 have been urged to take the treatment without delay.
A single course of antibiotics is highly effective in preventing the contraction and spread of this disease in 90 per cent of cases.
There are four centres open in and around Canterbury, including the Gate Clinic at Kent and Canterbury Hospital, where hundreds of people were treated yesterday. A nurse at the clinic, which usually functions as a sexual health centre, said: ‘We have had hundreds of people here today.
‘We are treating anyone who has been up at the university working or who thinks they may have been exposed.’
In scenes reminiscent of the pandemic, visitors are handed masks as they arrive at another site Westgate Hall, usually a community hall for salsa classes and bake sales, but is now a make-shift clinic dishing out doses.
Among those visiting was Ryan Neil, 23, who sought the antibiotics as a precaution after partying at Club Chemistry on March 5.
The Canterbury Christ Church student said: ‘I have not got any symptoms but I thought it would be better to be safe than sorry.’
Fellow student Megan Wood, 21, who was at the nightclub on the same night, said she was also worried about potentially contracting meningitis.
‘I thought I should be safe and take the antibiotics because who knows what we could have picked up at the club?’ She said.
Charlotte Taylor, 23, who studies Cognitive Psychology and Neuropsychology, said everyone at the University of Kent is frightened.
‘There’s so much mixed messaging going around campus at the moment and it’s not a nice place to be right now.
‘I didn’t go to the club but everyone at university is so connected I thought it would be better to come here and get the antibiotics.’
