Name: Five new meningitis cases found in Kent | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-03-18T16:32:14.000Z
Duration: 9 min 55 s
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Last hour, the UK Health Security Agency said that the number of meningitis cases that it is investigating as part of an outbreak in Kent has risen by 5 to 20.

It comes ahead of thousands of students in the region being offered a vaccine against meningitis today as part of efforts to control the outbreak.

Well, the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, joins us now.

Let's go straight in with the latest situation and those new figures that were released by the UK Health Security Agency.

So, first and foremost, my heart goes out to the families of those two young people who've tragically died.

I cannot begin to imagine what they're going through.

And because those two cases throw into sharp relief in the most painful way, how serious meningococcal disease can be, there is understandable concern about what this means in terms of risk to others.

So let me just tell you where we are and what we're doing.

As of this morning, we've got nine confirmed cases, another 11 suspected cases.

We are concentrated on the outbreak and the links to Club Chemistry in Canterbury and in particular the risk to people who are there on the 5th, 6th and 7th of March.

There are a few things that people can take some reassurance from.

Firstly, in all of the cases, from the very first case we became aware of on Friday night into the early hours of Saturday morning, we've been actively tracing the contacts of those cases and proactively offering antibiotics which are extremely effective.

So over 90% of cases, this is an effective treatment.

And we have been proactively and in a preventative way offering those antibiotics to close contacts.

We've also stood up antibiotic provision on the university campus itself.

We've now, through distribution sites across Canterbury and Broadstairs, issued two and a half thousand doses of antibiotics.

Again, really important because it's extremely effective.

And today we're standing up a targeted vaccination campaign on students in halls of residence at the University of Kent, which will reach 5,000 students.

Students in terms of that particular cohort, this disease, whilst very serious, is spread through close personal contact.

So in terms of the general risk, it's very low.

But you can understand why if close personal contact involves things like kissing or sharing drinks or sharing vapes or living in shared accommodation, while we're particularly concerned about people who are at club chemistry on the 5th, 6th, 6th and 7th of March, while we're focused on halls of residence and those shared dwellings and following these cases in a very evidence led way.

So I Hope that people are reassured that we're proactively managing it, that the antibiotic provision is there, we're standing up vaccination and the general risk is low, even if the disease itself is extremely serious.

It will be worrying news, of course, that the numbers overnight have risen up to 20 suspected cases.

Just with the way the disease works, how long it takes for symptoms to.

Could we expect that number to rise further?

It may well do, and we're following that closely.

In a normal year, we would expect to see at least 350 cases, so that's roughly one a day.

So I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if in different parts of the country, we see cases presented that are unconnected to this particular outbreak in Canterbury.

And in every single one of those cases, we will be testing whether there is a potential link back to the cluster in Canterbury.

What's worried us about the Canterbury outbreak is the pace and extent of the spread of the disease.

that's why we are being so proactive in the provision of antibiotics, because they're an effective treatment, but

also standing up vaccination at a pace and in a way that we wouldn't normally do.

And I hope that that will give some reassurance to people and to your viewers watching this morning who were at Club Chemistry on the 5th, 6th and 7th of March, or any of the young people watching in and around the Canterbury area who maybe know someone who's been affected or are showing symptoms.

Firstly, those sites in Canterbury and Broadstairs are open to people to come forward and get antibiotics, but

in terms of symptoms, then people can and obviously should call NHS 111 to ask for health advice or in an emergency, dial 999 and access emergency services.

The focus, obviously, is on the situation in Kent, but

a lot of the students that we've been talking to want to go home.

Is there a concern that this might spread geographically?

And lots of students from Kent have already gone home.

It's exam week at the university this week, so there are still quite a few students around sitting their exams.

Lots of students will have gone home and that's fine, that's okay.

What we need people to do is to think through in terms of their individual situations.

Were they at club chemistry on the 5th, 6th and 7th of March?

The sensible thing to do is to access antibiotics.

And if you're one of those students who's gone home, you're thinking, well, I Don't really want to schlep all the way back to Canterbury or down to Broadstone, then people can access those antibiotics via their gp.

And we've been in contact with GP services across the country to facilitate that.

But in terms of students, for example, thinking, is it right for me to go and sit my exam this week?

Or if they're at schools and the college in the Canterbury area, thinking, is it right for me to go to school or to go to college?

The reassuring thing here is that this disease spreads through close personal contact.

So it is things like kissing, sharing drinks, sharing vapes.

On the latter, that's not a sensible thing to do, regardless.

But if, for example, people are thinking, well, what about I was sat on a train or traveling back home?

It's close personal contact of the kind that I've described, which is why we are focused on and concerned about episodes linked to Club Canterbury.

Because those are the sorts of behaviors.

Sharing vapes, sharing drinks, dare I say it, kissing, those are the sort of things we might expect to see happening in a nightclub setting.

And that might explain, although we'll be obviously looking carefully at this, that might explain why this outbreak is different from the sorts of, of episodes we've seen before.

You've declared it as a national incident.

Perhaps you could explain what that means because that gives the impression, of course, that the whole country should worry.

And also whether you think now you've talked to the JCVI about looking again at some kind of a catch up vaccination program for those who weren't vaccinated before 2015.

Whether you think that now is the right course of action.

Yeah, I'm really glad you asked this question.

So firstly, it's really important for me to stress this is not currently a national incident.

We declare a national incident when nationwide we've got a health emergency that's putting critical stress and pressure on the health system and we declare a national incident to manage in that way.

And we make a whole range of different choices about health service provision, which might include, for example, standing down planned elective treatment in order to focus on emergency response.

we've seen this reflected a bit on the front pages today, is this is the national response or the response is being managed nationally.

And that's why I, as the Health Secretary have been on top of this since I was first informed of the risk first thing Sunday morning but we've got our national team at the UK Health Security Agency as well as NHS England and Department for Health and Social Care helping to support and manage this nationally, including working with our friends at the Department for Education in terms of supporting schools, the college and the universities in the Canterbury area.

That's not the same as a national incident of the type we saw during the COVID pandemic from example.

And I hope again that distinction between national incident and national response is one that people will find reassuring.

We ought to be worried as a country if there's a national incident that doesn't apply here.

We should be reassured that there is a national response and that while this is focused on Canterbury, we are managing this nationally, supporting local health leaders, supporting local education leaders to make sure we getting the right care, the right treatment and the right vaccination to the right people in a timely fashion.