Meningitis and the media

A proper gander at some more of what happened last month

Some Thinking Allowed

Apr 28, 2026

Further to this post…

Meningitis musings

Some Thinking Allowed

Mar 21

Read full story

…I thought it worth a further look at some of what appeared in the media last month in the context of the reported meningitis outbreak in Kent.

First some context…

2023

Here is a Meningitis Now article from 2023 describing an art student, Sophie Ward:

20-year-old Sophie sadly died of meningococcal septicaemia in 2023…
Sophie had had all the MenACWY vaccinations… She might still be alive if she had been given the MenB vaccination…

My working assumption here is that this story is real, and that the report is factually correct.

In the context of the past few years though, I can’t help wondering how much funding Meningitis Now gets from organisations and people with a financial interest in vaccination.

But the main things to note here are the name, the picture and the year: 2023

2025

Moving forward to 2025, here is a Mirror article from 19th February of that year:

…featuring 20-year-old Sophie Ward who sadly died of meningococcal septicaemia in 2023. A similar piece also appeared in The Sun on the same day.

Not least out of curiosity, I did a search for BBC articles mentioning meningitis from around that time.

There were two shortly before the Mirror piece:

Extracts:

A medical student who had a hand transplant after losing several limbs to meningitis has said the surgery changed her life…
She volunteers with charity Meningitis Now to boost vaccine awareness among students

And:

Hospital medical staff failed to swiftly administer antibiotics to the son of one of the hospital’s senior doctors - who was showing signs of sepsis - an inquest has heard.
William Hewes died aged 22 at Homerton University Hospital in east London in January 2023 within 24 hours of being admitted after his meningitis, caused by a meningococcal infection, developed into sepsis…

And there were another two shortly afterwards:

Extracts:

Money raised through the fund will go to Meningitis Now.
“We know there was no vaccination that Jax could take, perhaps with more funding and more research things can change in the future,” said Mr Knowles. Mr and Mrs Knowles have set up the Jaxon Knowles Forever Fund, “dedicated to the memory of little Jax”.

And:

A teenager from Cornwall who lost his legs and forearms after contracting meningitis as a one-year-old is determined to have a career in sport, he says.

All in the space of five weeks or so.

That strikes me as quite a lot of meningitis coverage from the same BBC that recently stated, in the context of “complaints from people who felt there was a lack of coverage of the “rape gang inquiry” backed by Rupert Lowe MP”:

We have limited resources and it is not possible to report on every story which is of interest to our audiences. We know that not everyone will agree with our choices of what to cover, or the prominence stories are given. Our news editors make these complex decisions based on their editorial merit and the other stories in the news that day…

2026

Moving into 2026, here (and here) is a Daily Mail article from 20th March 2026, several days after the reports of a meningitis outbreak in Kent:

The same story — originally from 2023 — that was recycled in 2025…

A month or so on from the March meningitis media frenzy, here are the results of a search (in the fourth week of April) for “meningitis”:

Remarkably, since the ten meningitis articles on 17th March there has apparently been no mention of meningitis in any more BBC news articles…

Finally, consider this short video from BBC Radio Kent…

…which, like the above Daily Mail article, was put out on 20th March of this year, several days after the many reports of a meningitis outbreak in Kent.

Curiously, the video was apparently “filmed on 19.02.2026”:

How are you feeling about what’s happening on campus?
Reminds me a little bit of covid, to be honest.
Me and my friends were in the club… when the girl was in there who had it… And then my mum told me earlier today that I was eligible… So we’ve come down and we’re in the queue…
I haven’t been in school the last few days because of it… but I thought [I’d] come down here… do my part… get the vaccine… and then… I can go back and carry on…

“Reminds me a little bit of covid…”

“Do my part…”

Make of that what you will.

Perhaps not unrelated: