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The number of meningitis cases under investigation in Kent has surged to 20 as health authorities strive to control the most severe outbreak seen in decades.
This morning, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced the increase, up from the 15 cases reported just yesterday, raising concerns that the number of fatalities might also climb.
Today, the National Pharmacy Association disclosed that the meningitis B vaccines are currently unavailable for private purchase, highlighting a significant supply issue.
Following the deaths of a grammar school student and a university attendee, a national alert has been issued, with related cases emerging in London and France.
Meanwhile, a baby remains in critical condition in the hospital after falling ill on March 4, merely days before a series of meningitis incidents surfaced 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.
The outbreak linked to Club Chemistry nightclub in Canterbury 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 that cases could increase in the coming days.Â
Students queue for antibiotics outside the University of Kent in Canterbury yesterday
Thirteen 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.
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.’
Olivier Picard, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that there was currently no stock of meningitis B vaccines for people to pay for privately.
He said pharmacies were used to ‘bridging the gap between what the NHS offers and what patients want’.
He 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.
‘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’.
The UK Health Security Agency (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.
‘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.
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.