Sunday Times 2
Questions still remain on UK meningitis outbreak
View(s):This week has shown how utterly devastating and shocking meningitis can be. One day you can be incredibly fit and healthy. Twenty-four hours later you can be in intensive care as bacteria invade the lining of your brain and poison your blood.
Bacterial meningitis has become rare in the UK, but occasionally there are small clusters reported. In this instance, the first case was reported to the UK Health Security Agency on March 13 and public warnings came two days later. The size and speed of the outbreak, which affected 29 people, killing 2, has been labelled “unprecedented”.
When will this be over?
There were only two new cases reported on Friday – that does not mean we are past the peak of infections. But this is being seen as an encouraging sign.
The start of the outbreak was a super-spreader event at the nightclub Club Chemistry in Canterbury between March 5-7.
The incubation period, the time between infection and getting symptoms, is thought to be up to 10 days. It means that, hopefully, there will not be many more cases linked to those nights in the club.
Around 10,000 people have been given antibiotics, which should clear meningitis bacteria and stop those people becoming sick or spreading it further.
Will it spread beyond Kent?
So far the confirmed and suspected cases all have a direct connection to Kent. However, we have heard from some students who left university to go home when the news broke.
It is possible that somebody has the bacteria living harmlessly in their nose, but has travelled elsewhere in the country where they could pass it on to people.
Should all teenagers be given the vaccine?
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has asked the government’s vaccine advisors to look again at the evidence.
There has never been an argument about whether the vaccine works – it does – it is about whether it is considered cost effective. It is a mathematical calculation that feels cold and distant from the pain felt by families devastated by meningitis. The meningitis B (MenB) vaccine is expensive – around £220 if you pay for it privately.
Has the bacterium become
more dangerous?
An initial genetic analysis of the bacterium causing the outbreak was concluded on Thursday. But more detailed analysis now needs to take place. Small mutations can have a big impact on the behaviour of the bacterium.
Experts will be working to establish whether something has changed that may make it more likely to spread or better able to invade the body or to get into brain tissues than other strains.
What else could have triggered
such a rapid outbreak?
Does the explanation for its scale and speed lie solely in the bacterium itself or did other factors play a role?
There has been a lot of chatter about sharing vapes in a packed nightclub. It is unhygienic, but there is no definitive proof it is responsible and is hardly unusual behaviour.
Did Covid lockdowns mean current teenagers and students have been exposed to fewer meningococcal bacteria (remember up to 25% of people in this age group have them harmlessly at the back of the nose or throat) in their lives, so had less immunity?
It has also been pointed out that a cloud of dust was swept up from the Saharan desert and blown over Europe and the UK with dates that match the start of the outbreak. That kind of dust is known to irritate the airways making it easier for bacteria to go from harmlessly sitting there to invading the body. It is also responsible for the Meningitis Belt across Africa.
Are any of these a factor? Or could it be that there is no one single reason, but lots of small things added together?
- Courtesy BBC