Ex-student calls for better meningitis awareness

A man who suffered a life-threatening meningococcaemia infection while at university said he felt like he was "going to die".

Matt Woolford, 25 from Reading, suffered a meningococcaemia infection when he was in his first year at Oxford Brookes University in October 2019.

The Meningococcal B (MenB) has been available on the NHS since 2015 as part of routine childhood immunisations. Woolford says it is "not good enough" that it is is not available for free to all young people.

On Tuesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he has asked the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to "re-examine eligibility for meningitis vaccines".

An outbreak in Kent has left two young people dead, with a further 13 cases reported to the UK Health Security Agency.

Woolford, who now works as a software engineer, said when he was in hospital with meningitis in 2019, he remembered saying the words "I feel like I'm going to die".

He said at first, he felt like he was "very, very drunk", which led to him being sick.

However, his condition soon deteriorated "very, very rapidly".

"I knew something was really, really wrong," he said.

Later that day he took himself to the John Radcliffe Hospital following advice from 111, where he was put on IV antibiotics.

He said he was sent back to his university halls, but later returned, saying he was still "confused and still severely ill".

He said later that week he was told he had tested positive for meningococcal - meningitis and septicaemia.

OUH has been approached for comment.

Woolford said was later told by his GP that he could not have the the MenB vaccine on the NHS, due to it not being cost effective.

He is now calling for the MenB vaccination to be rolled out more widely and said the outbreak in Kent was a "wake up call that's come too late".

"We've got more people who have died at university because of this.

"I think it's really, really important that this is a topic that's faced head on."

Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford, said it needed to be established whether this B strain is covered by the vaccine.

"This takes time for the UKHSA [UK Health Security Agency] to work out in the laboratory and they are working round the clock on this.

"If it does match then B vaccines are great but it takes time for the immune response to kick in after the jab.

"So the absolute priority today is to ensure that those who have been exposed get antibiotics to stop them developing the disease or spreading the B germs to others," he added.

The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.