Overview
- UKHSA confirmed Thursday that three linked cases were found in the Reading area, with a Henley College student dead and two young people in hospital.
- One infection is laboratory confirmed as meningitis B, and further tests and sequencing are pending on the other cases.
- The pupils receiving treatment attend Reading Blue Coat School and Highdown Secondary School, and close contacts are being given precautionary antibiotics.
- Authorities say the number of confirmed cases is very low and there are no plans for an emergency local vaccination campaign.
- Early testing indicates the Reading MenB strain is not the same as the one tied to March’s fatal Kent outbreak, which had prompted mass vaccination and antibiotics.