Bloomberg The UK meningitis outbreak may worsen in coming weeks and months, with further contamination unrelated to the southeastern county of Kent where it first emerged.
There is a risk that the epidemic will move from level 1, in which there is one known case cluster and a small number of cases elsewhere derive from that, to levels 2 or even 3, in which transmission continues without a clear link to the source of the outbreak, according to a technical briefing by the Health Security Agency. The danger of widespread contagion was considered remote. University students, particularly those in their first year, are at higher risk, the agency said. It plans to study precisely what happened at Club Chemistry in Canterbury, a three-floor nightclub, during three crucial days this month to understand what drove the transmission and turned those evenings into “superspreading events.”