The Health Secretary has expanded his appeal to more people to get antibiotics or the vaccine for meningitis after a deadly outbreak of the infection.
The University of Kent said 600 meningitis B (menB) vaccines had been administered on Wednesday, after hundreds of students joined a queue outside the campus sports centre.
Wes Streeting met staff administering the jabs at the vaccination centre at the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus.
Speaking to ITV Meridian, Mr Streeting said: “Today I am announcing a further expansion, so anyone who was at Club Chemistry from 5 March onwards, should now come forward for both antibiotics and vaccine.
“And anyone who was offered antibiotics previously, should now come forward.
“That will include more students at the University of Kent and some students at Canterbury Christchurch University and six former schools where we’ve got known or suspected cases.”
About 5,000 students from the Canterbury campus of the University of Kent are being offered the jab, alongside courses of antibiotics.
Those who have received it will need to return for their second dose after a minimum of four weeks, while 6,500 antibiotics have been given out as a precaution, the university said.
Asked about potential risk to the wider public, Mr Streeting said the outbreak of meningitis “isn’t like Covid”, adding the risk to the general public is “extremely low”.
“I really hope actually that people in Canterbury who would be understandably more anxious than perhaps the rest of the country are reassured by the fact that the transmission of this disease is through close personal contact only and that’s why we’ve been so concerned about the outbreak around Club Chemistry,” he added.
“We’ve got an effective treatment in the antibiotics, we’ve got the vaccine being rolled out, we’ve done the contact tracing, all of those things mean that the risk to the general public here in Canterbury is low.
“I’ve been here today, I stopped for a coffee in town before coming along to the vaccination centre on the way in this morning.
“People should continue to go about their lives as normal here in Canterbury and I hope people take reassurance for that.
“As for the general public, we’d expect to see around 350 cases a year across the country so what I’d say to people in terms of the coming days, in terms of what we can expect to see, I’d expect the numbers related to the outbreak here in Canterbury to increase in the coming days.
It comes as Morrisons confirmed an employee who attended Club Chemistry has contracted meningitis.
A Morrisons spokesperson said: “We can confirm that a colleague at our Sittingbourne distribution centre visited Club Chemistry and subsequently contracted meningitis.
“He is currently receiving treatment and we are in close touch with his family.
“We are following all government guidance, the site is operating as normal and we are continuing to monitor the situation closely.”
Elsewhere, a Kent University student said three people with meningitis are members of the cheerleading society there.
Olivia Parkins, 18, who is part of the cheerleading society at the University of Kent, told the Press Association there have been three confirmed cases within the society – all of whom are in hospital.
One school pupil and one university student have died and 18 more cases were being investigated by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) following an outbreak of meningitis linked to a nightclub in Canterbury.
The UKHSA issued an alert for the NHS across England on Wednesday on signs and symptoms of meningitis to look out for, though this does not signal the outbreak is going to spread nationwide.
The alert said the illness being seen in the Kent outbreak “has been severe with rapid deterioration” and urges clinical staff to take infection control measures in the period before patients are put on antibiotics, such as face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE).
It urges doctors to have a “high index of suspicion where a young person aged 16 to 30 attends with consistent signs or symptoms” of the bug.
Students from the university halls in Canterbury who have already left campus will be able to get a menB jab from their GP, according to the Department of Health.
Five new cases of meningitis were announced by the UKHSA on Wednesday morning, taking the total number being investigated by health officials to 20.
Of these, nine cases have been confirmed in the lab and 11 remain under investigation.
Six of the confirmed cases have been confirmed as the menB strain.
Canterbury Christ Church University, also in Kent, confirmed a meningitis case among its students on Wednesday, meaning confirmed or suspected cases have been reported at two universities and five schools.
GPs across the country have also been told to prescribe antibiotics to anyone who visited Club Chemistry in Canterbury from March 5-7, plus students from the University of Kent.
This is to ensure anyone who has left campus can make sure they get the right treatment.
The number of cases is expected to rise because the incubation period for the infection to when symptoms appear is between two and 14 days.
The UKHSA stressed there are plenty of NHS stocks of menB vaccines after pharmacies reported they were struggling to obtain stock for people who want to pay privately.
All reported cases so far have a link to Kent, according to the UKHSA.
Meanwhile, French authorities said a person who was admitted to hospital with meningitis in France with links to the Kent outbreak is now in a “stable” condition.
The French ministry of health told the Press Association no other cases of meningitis linked to the outbreak in Kent have been reported in France.
On Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer expressed his “deepest condolences” for the friends and family of the two people who had died following the outbreak in Kent during Prime Minister’s Questions.
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