ALMOST £1,000 has poured in for research into meningitis in memory of talented Dorchester student Ben Vincent.

Ben, 20, a former Thomas Hardye School pupil from Edward Road, died three weeks into a degree course at Cambridge University after contracting meningitis B and septicaemia.

His parents Dave and Tricia raised around £1,800 for charities researching vaccines to combat the disease when more than 300 people came from all over the country to attend his memorial service. Now the total has been boosted to nearly £2,800 after Dorset Echo readers sent in cheques to swell the appeal.

The total currently in for the Meningitis Research Foundation, which funds 39 separate research programmes into a vaccine, stands at £946.72 and more money comes in every day.

Firms that employed Ben during his gap year have sent in money, including Woods of Dorchester and the Thomas Hardy Brewery, and parents and individuals from all over South and West Dorset have given whatever they could afford over the Christmas period.

Ben had been feeling well the night before he collapsed, but the rapid progress of the disease meant that by the time he was found, meningitis had already taken hold. He reached Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge at 10am the next day, and suffered two cardiac arrests while in the accident and emergency department.

The foundation is doing all it can to help find a vaccine to prevent meningitis - the biggest infectious killer of young people in the UK - claiming lives.

It is also giving support to the thousands of families who have lost relatives to the disease, or with youngsters who have suffered brain damage after contracting meningitis.

Foundation spokesman Julia Warren said: "When a vaccine was found for the C strains of the disease in 1999, cases plummeted by 90 per cent.

"Now anyone under 25 can be vaccinated against the C strains free of charge and that has made a huge difference. We are now funding research into a vaccine for the B strains.

"There have been tragic cases of meningitis over the Christmas period - one where a 14-month-old baby lost both hands and both feet to the disease.

"It is absolutely fantastic that Dorset Echo readers have been so supportive of what we are trying to do."

Anyone who would like to make a donation in memory of Ben should send cheques made out to the Meningitis Research Foundation, c/o Miranda Holman, Dorset Echo, 13 Antelope Walk, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1BE.