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An animation school in London said an individual who attended its studios has been admitted to hospital after contracting meningitis. This case is linked to the wider outbreak in Kent. In a statement, Escape Studios said: "We understand that the individual is now recovering well, and our Student Services Team is offering support."

The school said it's working closely with UKHSA and local public health teams. This comes as the number of confirmed cases of meningitis in the Kent outbreak has increased to 27, it was announced on Thursday. This is up from 20 cases confirmed on Tuesday at 5pm. The update comes as the chief scientific officer of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said earlier today the number of cases was likely to increase. Professor Robin May said: "We confirmed yesterday 20 cases, so far. We have several other cases under investigation. That number will be updated later when we know a bit more about that. I would say in outbreaks like this, you would typically expect a small increase in numbers still to go, so I suspect that number will go up slightly."

He described the outbreak as "very unusual". Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he added: "So, typically, you would expect to see sporadic cases of meningitis, typically individual patients. Most days, actually, we would see one in the UK. This is obviously a much larger number. What is particularly remarkable about this case, and unexpected about this case, is the large number of cases all originating from what seems to be a single event. There are two possible reasons for that. One is that there might be something about the kind of behaviours that individual people are doing." He added: "The other possibility is the bacteria itself may have evolved to be better at transmitting."

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