{"id":631977,"date":"2026-09-22T01:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T01:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631977\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T01:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T01:42:09","slug":"scientists-discover-why-kent-meningitis-outbreak-was-so-severe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631977\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover why Kent meningitis outbreak was so severe"},"content":{"rendered":"

“This investigation shows just how quickly and dramatically these bacteria can change,” says Dr Charlene Rodrigues, consultant in Pathogen Genomics at UKHSA.<\/p>\n

“The fact this outbreak variant was able to spread to so many young people was due to the social environment, a place where lots of close social mixing takes place.”<\/p>\n

Speaking exclusively to the BBC, she said bacteria are known to undergo changes like this, known as horizontal gene transfer.<\/p>\n

Such changes can make infections more severe, and may mean they get past the immune system because people haven’t encountered them before. <\/p>\n

These events, while rare and unpredictable, could happen again, so experts “should not take their eye off the ball”, she added. <\/p>\n

Scientists say speed and severity of the Kent outbreak was very unusual<\/a>. It was described as “unprecedented” and “explosive” at the time, with so many infections happening in one place and over a very short period.<\/p>\n

Two people died – a 21-year-old University of Kent student and Juliette Kenny, a sixth-form pupil at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham.<\/p>\n

The outbreak is thought to have started in a nightclub called Club Chemistry in the city centre, which was popular with university students.<\/p>\n

It’s likely one person brought the infection in with them, and then it spread that evening. <\/p>\n

Meningitis is passed through close contact – including kissing and sharing drinks or vapes. <\/p>\n

Dr Rodrigues suspects the very same genetic changes that made the strain so dangerous may also explain why the outbreak was short-lived and did not continue to spread.<\/p>\n

People were generally too sick to be silent carriers who can pass it on unknowingly to others.<\/p>\n

Following the Kent outbreak, a one-off menB vaccination programme was launched to protect young people heading to university this autumn.<\/p>\n

In July, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) also recommended that teenagers should be offered the jab on the NHS around the age of 15, with catch-up programmes for those who would otherwise miss out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“This investigation shows just how quickly and dramatically these bacteria can change,” says Dr Charlene Rodrigues, consultant in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-631977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}