Public health officials now plan to screen friends and relatives of infected children for the disease. The Department of Health has launched an investigation. A meeting to decide how best to deal with the outbreak will take place next week between experts from the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Centre and the Public Health Laboratory Service as well as local physicians, microbiologists and health service managers. Twenty-six cases, mostly pupils, have been diagnosed since Monday. Another 60 students strongly suspected of having been infected have been given antibiotics as a precautionary measure.
Experts say the disease is now probably gaining a hold in the wider community.
People most at risk are those who have come into contact with the infected pupils. Maybe, and it is a maybe, if the vaccination scheme had continued, we wouldn't be seeing what we have today. Mr Rawnsley said that there were no plans to close the school. Clearly, there are implications in terms of the community of the school, where we have that number of teenagers working closely together. But at the moment, the advice we are being given is that it isn't necessary.