Call for rethink on meningitis

AN OFFICIAL report by the Bro Taf health authority on the outbreak of meningitis at the University of Wales, Cardiff has suggested that the Government Public Health Laboratory Service should review its guidelines for dealing with the disease.

Seven students were infected and two died at the university last autumn. Initially the health authority believed that the first two cases were unconnected. The PHL guidelines, as applied to educational establishments, define a cluster infection as two or more cases within a four-week period.

A spokesman for the PHL welcomed the report and said that guidelines on the disease were "evolutionary" and had been revised several times since being first issued in 1989.