Health: Mass vaccination as third student dies of meningitis
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Your support makes all the difference.All 14,000 students at Southampton University have either been given, or are being offered, vaccination and antibiotics following the third death of a female student from meningitis.
In what is the worst outbreak at a British university in terms of the number of people who have died, staff are also being offered tablets and immunisation.
The decision to extend the vaccination programme comes as it was revealed that a vaccine to protect students against a common strain of meningitis should be available by 2000.
The Government yesterday announced a pounds 1m boost to research projects to speed up the development of vaccines against meningitis. This will include a new vaccine against the C strain of the disease, which is becoming increasingly prevalent among teenagers and now accounts for 40 per cent of all meningitis cases in this age group. A vaccine against the C strain exists but protection is short lived.
A spokeswoman for the National Meningitis Trust said: "Students who have been immunised still need to be aware of meningitis and septicaemia and shouldn't rely on the vaccine - it is just a second line of defence."
Development of a vaccine against the B strain of the disease, which accounts for 60 per cent of cases, will not be available until the next century.
There have been six confirmed cases of meningitis at the university in three weeks, all affecting first year students.
The first five victims lived in the Wessex Lane halls of residence but the latest case involved a student at the Gateley Hall, some distance away.
She was admitted to hospital on Thursday and died yesterday morning. Initially the alarm that she had meningitis was not raised as tests were negative and it was not until after her death that a second lot of tests confirmed the disease.
After the first five cases, 1,200 first year students at Wessex Lane were given antibiotics and vaccinations. Yesterday the university said the antibiotics and vaccination programme had been extended to include all first year students, those living in halls of residence and staff working in them.
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