0 comments
Staff and students at the University of Kent were devastated by a fatal outbreak of meningitis last week, which left two people dead and more than 10 hospitalised.
The incident has thrown a community into chaos, as students begin to worry about those they’ve come into contact with and University staff try to manage the outbreak. Hundreds of young people have since begun queuing for antibiotics, while in-person exams have been moved online.
Many students fled home soon after news of the outbreak spread, with concerned parents coming to collect them in the night. But staff have warned students to ensure they take every precaution before returning to their family and friends.
Gayatri Amirthalingam, the deputy director of the immunisation and vaccine preventable diseases at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), urged young people to take up the offer of antibiotics.
When asked if it was safe for students to return home, she said: ‘If you are a university student and you’ve been offered antibiotics, or anyone else who’s been offered antibiotics, please that take immediately and it will be absolutely fine for you to return home. It’s an effective measure for protecting yourself, but also to your loved ones, your family and your friends.’
Urgency around precautionary measures reached new heights after tests found the outbreak to be a strain of Meningitis B, a less targeted form of the infection that few are vaccinated against.
People born before 2015 are not protected against meningitis B unless they received a vaccine privately. The vaccine was only introduced on the NHS for babies in 2015.
The risk of Meningitis B is highest in very young children and older teenagers and young adults, usually linked to going to university and mixing with lots of new people in a short space of time. But a vaccine for teenagers hasn’t been rolled out because it wasn’t deemed cost effective – the vaccine itself costs over £200 including a booster, and doesn’t prevent you from spreading the infection.
After the initial outbreak, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) contacted more than 30,000 people, including University of Kent students, staff and their families. The death of a 21-year-old Kent University student and an 18-year-old local sixth former led to widespread concern, while NHS Kent have offered free medication to anyone who attended nearby nightclub Club Chemistry on the 5th, 6th or 7th of March.
‘A lot of flatmates already left,’ one student told the BBC. ‘Their parents picked them up at like one in the morning. Actually, I think I’ll be the only guy in that flat now that all my friends are gone.’
He described fellow students running frantically with their belongings to escape campus. In such a dense social environment, university becomes a prime setting for the outbreak of infectious diseases. Some students have said they’re surprised the campus has even remained open, but local medical officials are concerned that fleeing students will only spread the risk of infection further afield.
