UK meningitis outbreak — should Europe be worried?

LONDON — A deadly outbreak of meningitis in the United Kingdom linked to a nightclub in England’s southeast has killed two people with new cases being reported daily.

Health officials are rolling out preventive antibiotics to those who attended the nightclub earlier this month, to close contacts of cases and to local university students. The latter are also being offered a vaccine.

But as U.K. health officials move to contain the outbreak, it has added to proliferating cases of meningitis across Europe — and has exposed patchy access to vaccines to prevent the disease.

Since 2021 Europe has seen increasing rates of invasive meningococcal disease, which is caused by a bacterial infection. The majority of cases have been linked to the same “group B” family of bacteria that caused the outbreak in England. 

POLITICO looked into how prepared EU countries are for a similar outbreak.

What happened in the UK?

From March 13-18 some 27 cases of invasive meningococcal disease were identified in the southeast of England, the U.K. Health Security Agency said Thursday. Nine have been confirmed as Neisseria meningitidis group B. 

At least 10 people who caught the illness had attended a nightclub in Canterbury from March 5-7. Most are students from the University of Kent in Canterbury or are upper-year students from local secondary schools. 

The illnesses have been severe with rapid deterioration. Two young people have died: an 18-year-old high school student and a 21-year-old university student. Health Secretary Wes Streeting described the cases as “an unprecedented outbreak.”

France reported one case to the U.K. in someone who had also visited the university then travelled to France, Streeting told parliament on Tuesday. “The patient has been hospitalized and is in stable condition,” a health ministry spokesperson told POLITICO, adding that close contacts had been alerted and offered antibiotics, and that no further cases had been reported.

How is the UK responding?

Health officials have set up four centers in and near Canterbury for students and those who attended the nightclub to receive preventive antibiotics. Family doctors in the region have been advised to offer treatment to anyone who visited the nightclub. “This is the main intervention that will help protect people and halt the spread of the outbreak,” said Trish Mannes from the U.K. Health Security Agency.

In addition, “as a further precaution,” 5,000 university students are being contacted and offered a vaccine to protect against meningitis group B, Mannes said. 

Nearby hospitals and schools have been told how to spot symptoms, how to prevent infection and respond.   

A student receives an injection at the University of Kent campus in Canterbury, U.K. on March 19, 2026. | Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images

Have cases been rising elsewhere?

Since 2021, cases of invasive meningococcal disease in Europe have been rising. In 2023 there were 1,895 confirmed cases, including 200 deaths in the EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Group B remains the major cause of the disease, accounting for 57 percent of cases with known type, and was the dominant group in all ages under 65 years. “Its notification rate has been increasing since 2021,” a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control report said.

France, Germany and Spain accounted for 57 percent of all confirmed cases, while Belgium, the Netherlands and Lithuania reported the second highest notification rate.

Group Y infections were the second-most reported (20 percent of cases with known serogroup) and the most reported in those over 65. Group W infections were the third-most reported overall (15 percent of cases with known serogroup).

Around 20 percent of young people carry the MenB bacteria in their noses and throats; the disease happens when the bacteria enter the bloodstream and when a person’s immune system is low. It causes a high fever, headache, vomiting and drowsiness, and can lead to inflammation of the brain and sepsis. It has a mortality rate of around 10 percent.

Those that survive are at risk of lifelong disability due to the amputations or brain damage caused by the infection.

WHO can get the vaccine?

GlaxoSmithKline’s MenB vaccine Bexsero was approved in Europe (including the U.K.) in 2013 and was rolled out as routine vaccination in the U.K. to infants in 2015. Infants are most at risk due to their lack of immunity.

There are over 100 different strains of MenB; the vaccine covers between 75 percent and 80 percent of them, said Adam Finn, professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Bristol. “The level of protection after 2 doses is very high and lasts for some years at least,” he added.

Infections also arise in adolescents, but the U.K. hasn’t offered MenB vaccinations in older children since it was launched. 

In Europe, 12 countries routinely offer the vaccine to infants for free —  the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal and Spain. Croatia and Poland offer it to children and adults with compromised immune systems. Austria recommends the vaccine in infants but doesn’t fund it.

Meanwhile, 12 countries — Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden — don’t offer the vaccine at all.

Seventeen EU countries offer vaccination against meningococcal serogroups A, C, Y and W.

Why isn’t vaccination universal? 

Each EU country takes advice from their independent immunization committees, which recommend which vaccines to offer citizens.

“National epidemiology — based on surveillance data — and cost effectiveness considerations determine these decisions,” Beate Kampmann, professor of pediatric infectious diseases and immunology and professor of global health, told POLITICO.

That means vaccine schedules in EU countries “differ as a result.”

“MenB meningitis is a rare disease and the vaccine is expensive,” Brendan Wren, professor of microbial pathogenesis at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said of the U.K. position. “Although given to young children who are the most vulnerable to MenB, it is not freely available to the whole population.” 

In light of the ongoing outbreak, however, Streeting told parliament that the country’s vaccination committee was reviewing whether to expand eligibility for the MenB jab.

In 2019, Belgium’s immunization experts decided not to offer the vaccine to infants or adolescents, citing the low incidence of the disease, the need to administer three shots, and the fact the vaccine “is not very cost-effective.”

The Netherlands said in 2022 that its Health Council wasn’t recommending the MenB vaccine “due to the relatively small burden of disease, the side effects of the vaccine and need for several doses, as well as cost.”

But the council is now reviewing its position again, with a decision expected in the next quarter, a ministry spokesperson told POLITICO.

Could the EU buy vaccines?

The EU can procure vaccines for groups of countries, with the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority acting as a negotiator with drugmakers in such cases. 

This could be an option for vaccines like Bexsero, should there be interest.

“The Netherlands had a positive experience with the EU role in the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines and is open to discussing a role for the EU in other joint procurement procedures,” the Dutch health ministry said.

Meanwhile, the vaccine is available for private purchase in most EU countries, but supplies in the U.K. are limited. 

“Pharmacies are being inundated by requests from concerned patients for MenB vaccination, which the vast majority of our members across the country have no stock currently available to fulfil,” said Olivier Picard, chair of the National Pharmacy Association.

Could the outbreak spread to Europe?

That’s unlikely since it’s not as easily transmitted among people.

“This outbreak is caused by a bacterial infection and by its nature it is a lot less infectious compared to Influenza, Measles or SARCOV-2,” said Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School.

“These bacterial infections require close contact and it is a heavy droplet aerosol spread, thus not very infectious and you need to be in close prolonged contact with a case, a family member, or a kissing contact,” he said, adding there is no need for restrictions on movement.

In Belgium, the health ministry said it is convening its scientific risk-assessment group “to evaluate the situation for our citizens and country.”

Meanwhile, ECDC issued a statement Wednesday evening saying the risk to the general population in Europe from the British outbreak was “very low.”

“Outbreaks of meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis typically occur in small clusters around cases or in places where many people gather. Although some secondary cases can occur among close contacts of cases, the disease does not spread in the community like, for example, a respiratory virus,” the disease agency said.

Claudia Chiappa contributed to this article.

Update: This article has been updated with UKHSA data issued March 19.