{"id":551119,"date":"2026-03-21T12:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/551119\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T12:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:02:08","slug":"meningitis-cases-rise-to-34-as-health-experts-continue-to-investigate-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/551119\/","title":{"rendered":"Meningitis cases rise to 34 as health experts continue to investigate outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cases of meningitis<\/a> are up to 34 as health<\/a> experts continue to investigate the outbreak in Kent.<\/p>\n

The UK Health Security Agency<\/a> (UKHSA) said there are 23 confirmed cases of the infection, with a further 11 under investigation. A total of 18 of the 23 confirmed cases are the meningitis B strain, each of them requiring hospital admission.<\/p>\n

There have been no further deaths since sixth-form pupil Juliette Kenny and a 21-year-old student sadly passed away earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Dr Ben Rush, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control at UKHSA said the agency continues to \u201cremain vigilant\u201d and is working with NHS England and local authorities to \u201censure enhanced surveillance is in place\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAny new cases will be identified quickly and responded to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/p>\n

Students queuing to receive vaccines and antibiotics at the University of Kent campus in Canterbury on Saturday morning (Stanley Murphy-Johns\/PA)<\/p>\n

NHS Kent and Medway said that as of Friday night, 5,794 vaccines had been given and 11,010 antibiotics administered.<\/p>\n

Huge queues of students lining up and waiting to receive their jabs were seen at the University of Kent campus in Canterbury yesterday.<\/p>\n

Around 500 people, including students and those eligible, lined up early today as the clinic site in Canterbury opened at 9am.<\/p>\n

Students towards the front of the queues said they had been waiting since 7am. One said they had been there from around 5am.<\/p>\n

Drama and theatre student Mara, 22, said: \u201cI think it\u2019s important to make sure we protect ourselves because obviously there\u2019s been some deaths and people in hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think all of us are quite worried at the moment so it\u2019s better that we all get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradley, who studies sport and exercise science, said he had been waiting since before the clinic opened this morning.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old said: \u201cI\u2019m just getting the vaccine, getting it done. Trying to protect myself and people around me. I think it\u2019s very important that we all get it done as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cases of meningitis are up to 34 as health experts continue to investigate the outbreak in Kent. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,13358,214121,214122,84,214119,214120,36717,98612,210900],"class_list":["post-551119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-confirmed-cases","tag-consultant-in-communicable-disease-control","tag-dr-ben-rush","tag-health","tag-hospital-admission","tag-juliette-kenny","tag-nhs-england","tag-uk-health-security-agency","tag-university-of-kent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}