UK Meningitis Outbreak May Worsen, Health Security Agency Warns
Students receive meningitis vaccines and antibiotics at the University of Kent campus in Canterbury, UK.
Photographer: Stanley Murphy-Johns/AP PhotoThe 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.