Manchester Student Meningococcal Infection
More on possible Gain-of-Function at the Manchester Meningococcal Reference Unit
Yesterday I wrote an essay about an outbreak of virulent meningococcal infection in Canterbury near the University of Kent in which I posed the question Gain-of-Function at the Manchester Meningococcal Reference Unit?
This morning I woke up to the news that a student at St John Rigby College in Wigan—twenty miles west of Manchester—is suspected of having a meningococcal infection.
I also noticed a paper published in January 2026 about a new meningococcal vaccine that is now being rolled out for British university students.
One of the paper’s authors, Roy Borrow, is head of the Manchester Meningococcal Reference Unit. As I noted yesterday, this lab works in “vaccine evaluation, antibiotic resistance monitoring, pre-clinical vaccine development, and virulence studies.”
Was Borrow’s lab performing challenge studies on this new vaccine using Neisseria meningitidis samples whose virulence had been amplified, perhaps by serial passage through rats? Alternatively, had the Manchester Reference Unit received samples whose virulence had been amplified by serial passage through rhesus monkeys at another lab? Note that serial passage can produce strains with faster replication, leading to higher bacterial loads in a host.
Yet another element of this story that should be investigated is why precisely the older 4CMenB (Bexsero) vaccine—designed to protect against invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) caused by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B—did not provide universal coverage against all circulating strains?
Finally, were the circulating strains not covered by the older vaccine becoming the dominant strain in Britain do to selective pressure applied by the 4CMenB (Bexsero) vaccine?
This strikes me as a question for Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche. If any readers are in contact with the Belgian vaccinologist, please forward this post to him.
A new “vaccine” just in time for a new strain of new more virulent meningitis. What a coincidence.
The benign quality of the C-19 plus the failures of the vax for it have produced a lot of skeptics. Truly malicious global planners may design a deadly bug to kill off 'resisters' who will refuse any prophylaxis offered by Pharma. These will be the target for a final 'culling'. After all, there remain 20-30% of the population in the US that are still healthy, fertile, and non-compliant. We can't have that now can we? It will create competition for the remaining resources our friends in high places have yet to steal.