HUNDREDS of rubber ducks are to be used in a campaign to alert students to the threat of meningitis.

Four hundred ducks, each carrying details of the symptoms students should look out for, will be thrown across Teesside University Students' Union nightclub as part of a competition for first years.

Tracey Goodfellow, students' union education and welfare officer, said: "If we use a fun way to get the message across about the symptoms, so much the better."

The university treats the threat of meningitis seriously, after a student was taken to hospital in January last year with symptoms. He subsequently recovered.

The ducks will be distributed next Friday night