Thousands of university students will be swabbed this month as part of an investigation into the outbreak of meningitis in Kent.
Scientists at the UK Health Security Agency want to test 3,000 university students across three campuses.
This includes students at the University of Kent, Canterbury campus, students at Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury Campus, and students who study at any of the universities based at the Medway campus.
It comes after an outbreak of the disease in March killed two people and 34 people were hospitalised with confirmed or suspected invasive meningococcal disease.
Those who died included a University of Kent student and Juliette Kenny, a Year 13 pupil at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham.
A nightclub was the centre of the outbreak, with thousands urged to come forward after a suspected case attended the venue.
Those who volunteer in the investigation will have their throats swabbed, and the samples will be tested.
UKHSA say the outbreak was caused by a new strain of the meningococcal bacteria, but scientists do not know how commonly the meningococcal bacteria, and especially the outbreak strain, are carried in young adults in Kent.
For this reason, they want to collect throat swabs from three different groups of university students age 18 to 24.
Dr Shamez Ladhani, Consultant Epidemiologist at UKHSA, said: “Fortunately, no further cases of meningococcal disease have been linked to the outbreak in Kent since 16 March, but our investigations into this unusually large and severe outbreak continue.
“Next week we will be offering throat swabbing to students in three different campuses and laboratory testing on these swabs will then help us understand more about the outbreak strain and how widely students are carrying the Meningococcal bacteria.
“We encourage everyone who is contacted by their university or who is on site at the time to take part in the investigation.
“The findings of the investigations could help inform additional public health actions that might be needed to reduce the risk of further cases and outbreaks of meningococcal disease among university students in the future.”
A vaccination programme was first launched on March 18 targeting students in halls at the University of Kent before being widened more broadly.
By April 1, almost 12,000 people had received the MenB vaccine, while more than 13,500 courses of antibiotics issued as a precaution.
