21.03.14
New MenB vaccine to be available through NHS
The Department of Health is to work on introducing the new meningococcal B (MenB) vaccine, Bexsero, into the NHS’s childhood vaccination programme.
MenB disproportionately affects babies and young children and can be devastating. After “careful” consideration, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) concluded that use of the new vaccine would reduce cases of meningococcal meningitis and septicaemia and lead to a reduction in deaths, limb amputations and brain injury caused by the disease.
The JCVI’s recommendation to the UK health departments is that if the new vaccine can be purchased cheaply and is cost-effective for the NHS, it “should be used in the routine immunisation programme for babies” to prevent disease.
The DH will now start negotiations with Novartis, which produces the only licenced vaccine, as soon as possible. The JCVI has recommended adding the vaccination to the primary childhood programme meaning that, if plans progress, infants will be immunised starting at two months of age.
Professor John Watson, deputy chief medical officer, said: “Infants under one year of age are most at risk of MenB and the number of cases peak at around five or six months of age. With early diagnosis and antibiotic treatment, most make a full recovery.
“But it is fatal in about one in ten cases and can lead to long-term health problems such as amputation, deafness, epilepsy and learning difficulties.”
Meningitis Now founder Steve Dayman MBE, who launched the meningitis movement in the UK after losing his baby Spencer to meningitis in 1982, added that this news is what his organisation has campaigned for, “that the meningitis B vaccine is being introduced free for infants”.
“This is the most monumental announcement in the fight against the disease in the 31 years I have campaigned to eradicate meningitis,” he added.
(Image: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire)
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