R to @apsmunro: If you want to know more about meningococcal disease and this recent outbreak, I have written an explainer in my newsletter which can be found at the link below
https://open.substack.com/pub/alasdairmunro/p/menb-or-not-menb-that-is-the-question?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
A short, but dramatic outbreak of meningococcal disease - glad that it all seems to be winding down
Huge thanks to the incredibly hard working people at @UKHSA who organised the response with vaccination and prophylactic antibiotics 🙏
What do we mean when we say 'meningitis'
https://youtube.com/shorts/4ibw5vuP0Gw
(also recommend this excellent blog from @apsmunro
https://alasdairmunro.substack.com/p/menb-or-not-menb-that-is-the-question)
#meningitis
Don't miss out... Read it, share it, save it, understand it...
How the Covid legacy shaped the meningitis response: A frightened generation shaped by lockdown; misinformation; the need to attribute blame; a communications challenge for public health officials & misplaced belief that medicine can eliminate all risk
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2026/03/was-kent-prepared-for-meningitis
My new post looks at the current meningococcal outbreak in south east England
What is meningococcus?
What's happening with the outbreak?
What's the deal with the vaccines?
https://open.substack.com/pub/alasdairmunro/p/menb-or-not-menb-that-is-the-question?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
This is a brilliant article on Meningitis B by Alasdair Munro - a senior clinical research fellow in paediatric infectious disease. He runs clinical trials and study infections in children, including Covid-19. https://alasdairmunro.substack.com/p/menb-or-not-menb-that-is-the-question
If the children’s module does the same as this one, and simply vindicates what we already knew and planned to deliver, I will require veterinarian levels of sedation to get through it
Another wonderful summary from @apsmunro on the current situation of the MenB outbreak in the UK.
Please make sure you read carefully and share if you believe it will be useful for someone.
#pedsID #menBoutbreak @ESPIDsociety @seipweb
https://open.substack.com/pub/alasdairmunro/p/menb-or-not-menb-that-is-the-question?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
From today, the NHS will offer free chickenpox vaccinations as part of its routine childhood immunisation programme.
This will keep more children well and in school, protecting them from a disease that can be serious, and reduce the time parents take off work to care for them.
This issue of Calvin and Hobbes lives rent-free in my mind
Why should someone have to be afebrile to receive oral antibiotics? Are iv antibiotics better fever reducers? What if I gave Tylenol with the oral antibiotics? This is traditional, non evidence-based “because we said so” nonsense, typical of shmidelines.
If I remember the evidence for Tamil right it clearly showed that it could reduce how long flu symptoms lasted from 7 days to 1 week.
My two paragraph summary of my ignorance about covid, and why I think we should find clever ways to test stuff more.
To see how unbelievably stupid this is, consider the following is equally true
“The statement “vaccines don’t cause people to turn into sweetcorn” is not an evidence based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that vaccines cause people to turn into sweetcorn”
Respiratory PCR testing has exploded since the pandemic, but tests are expensive and sometimes used indiscriminately
We produced a statement for our regional network to help guide testing and improve diagnostic stewardship
https://www.piernetwork.org/guidelines-respiratory-pcr-testing.html
Worth noting that your own marginal AI use has negligible impact but that AI is an industry & uses resources at an industrial scale. It is relatively resource hungry in electricity but it seems very resource efficient in water compared to other industries.
This would at least explain why it's been hard to find 'the' cause of KD (EBV, adeno etc) in the past, if multiple different primary viral infections can trigger it. A bit like HLH (lots of EBV but also other pathogens, triggers).
This fits nicely with a discussion we had at work last week
MIS-C wasn’t really a new or distinct thing - it was just Kawasaki disease presenting in older children encountering a pathogen for the first time, hence the differing phenotype
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-025-04499-8
Children's commissioners evidence today "We took away children's basic
freedoms for the best part of two years."
"there were some voices, including some quite loud voices in the scientific community, who were arguing that schools should not open. Indeed, the British Medical Association argued that, various other bodies did, as well, slightly to my surprise."
Chris Whitty 🇬🇧 #CovidInquiry today 🧵
"if we were running things again, this is one of the areas where I think I would have preferred a policy that was more liberal about children's play in reality. But that is a policy view, which is not really my job."
This is how you do Sci-comms on childhood vaccinations and research.
Thank you @apsmunro
Did you see @UHSFT's @apsmunro on BBC South with @edwardjsault? 📺
Flu is a common virus. While many people recover quickly, it can be dangerous for young children.
A new trial is exploring whether the flu vaccine can be extended to younger toddlers.
🔗 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3x5ynl43wo
A UK-wide trial is testing if the nasal flu vaccine can be safely offered to one-year-olds.
Led by UHS, the FluSNIFF study is inviting families to take part at 100 GP practices and three hospitals.
🔗 https://bit.ly/3LghgRN
#WeAreUHS #FluVaccine #ClinicalResearch
R to @apsmunro: This is completely as one would expect
Importantly, this shows it has nothing to do with completely fabricated and fictitious long-term impacts of Covid itself on children's immune systems, made up by people who don't seem to understand immunology
Pleased to share my latest article - looking at the successes and failures of therapeutics to protect babies against RSV
The last two years have been game changing - but there's still plenty of work to be done!
Link in next post