Students in tears as they are denied MenB jab after queuing for hours

Students were reduced to tears today after queuing for hours for a meningitis jab only to be turned away because of a shortage of vaccinators.

Health officials came under fire for closing the queue early at the University of Kent for the second day in a row so they could close the doors at 5pm.

Those impacted questioned why the popup clinic could not be staffed later into the evening to meet the predictable demand for protection, with some now unable to return for several days due to weekend jobs.

It came as experts said the initial outbreak linked to the Club Chemistry nightclub, in Canterbury, Kent, appeared to be fizzling out but warned ‘sporadic’ household clusters could appear nationwide over the next month as students return home.

Around 15,000 people have been urged to get a MenB jab as soon as possible to curb the spread of the bacteria that has already killed sixth-form pupil Juliette Kenny, 18, and a university student, 21.

The number of cases has now reached 29, up just two from 27 a day earlier.

Genetic testing results released today show the MenB vaccine is likely to be effective against the circulating strain, which is thought to be a new sub-variant of a type found in the UK for five years.

Students and staff began queueing outside the vaccine clinic at the university’s sports centre over an hour before it opened at 9am, with 1,000 waiting in the half-a-mile line by mid-morning.

But security teams sparked fury when they told more than 100 people to leave the queue at 3pm, saying they would not make it to the front before the doors closed.

The UK Health Security Agency had blamed a ‘staffing issue’ for turning students away in similar circumstances yesterday.

Charlie Chevis and Isabelle Annenberg, both 18, said they had joined the queue at 11.30am today, before being turned away three-and-a-half hours later.

Mr Chevis, a first-year history student, described the situation as ‘frustrating’, while Ms Annenberg, a first-year psychology student, said it was ‘annoying’.

Molly Howard stayed waiting at the end of the official queue in the hope that one of the 496 people who had been allowed to stay dropped out.

‘I’m basically trying my luck,’ the 20-year-old said. ’If someone drops out I can take their place.’

The criminology student, who had been queuing for two hours after travelling for two hours from her home in Folkestone, said: ‘I got a bit tearful, it’s fine. It brings back Covid. This brings everyone’s emotions back up.’

She said her mother and sister were in hospital during the pandemic and it was ‘quite traumatic’.

‘I’m doing it for them,’ she added. ‘I might not get it but I’ll try.’

Film student Scarlett Bahnsen, 21, waited in the queue for over five hours after arriving at 8.30am and said it was the ‘earliest I’ve got up for a long time’.

She said the clinic should stay open later in the evening to cater for students, adding: ‘I feel like a lot more people would probably go later at night.’

The vaccine and antibiotics are being offered to anybody who attended Club Chemistry between March 5 and March 15, university students in Canterbury and sixth-formers at local schools with cases.

NHS Kent and Medway said 4,514 vaccines and 10,561 courses of antibiotics had been administered in Kent as of this afternoon.

Ed Waller, the NHS trust’s deputy chief executive, said there are six clinics offering jabs and antibiotics across the county and advised people queuing to ‘think about where they go’.

He indicated that other sites are less busy than the University of Kent sports hall, with some open until 7.30pm.

When asked about the closing times of the vaccine centres, Mr Waller said: ‘We are trying to maximise the capacity and the opening hours of all the sites.

‘So we are in the process of operationalising as much capacity as we can.’

Dr Anjan Ghosh, director of public health at Kent County Council, said officials are considering three scenarios that could unfold over the next month, with the most likely being that students who have travelled away from Kent will ‘incubate’ the bug and there could be ‘household’ cases elsewhere.

However, he said these would be ‘containable’ and stressed the risk of infection is low.

The ‘worst-case scenario’ is another ‘superspreader event’ resulting in another cluster of cases outside of the county but this is ‘highly unlikely’, he added.

Describing the course of the local outbreak, he said: ‘Hopefully it’s starting to slow down.

‘I think until next week, we won’t be able to say for sure, the normal sequelae of an outbreak of this sort is about four weeks.’

However, Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: ‘The incubation period, though a little uncertain, ranges from two to 10 days so I think we can be fairly certain that the peak from the initial super-spreading event will have already passed.

‘The question remains whether there will be any secondary cases i.e. any cases that didn’t get their infection from the night club but from someone else who did attend.’