Last Friday it was announced the United Kingdom would become the first country in the world to introduce a national Meningitis B vaccination programme.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), an expert body who advises the government on vaccinations, originally ruled the Meningitis B Vaccine, Bexsero, was not cost effective. Just over one year later they are now recommending this vaccination on the condition that a cost effective solution can be met with the supplier of Bexsero, Novartis.
The decision came after a whole year of campaigning for the vaccination, including 118 paediatricians, scientists and nurses writing to the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, in January pressing him to reconsider the decision on the Meningitis B vaccine.
According to the charity Meningitis Now there are around 1,870 cases of meningitis B each year in the UK. Meningitis B is most common in under 5’s, with one in ten cases being fatal and one in four suffering from long term problems such as amputation, epilepsy, deafness or an acquired brain injury.
The Child Brain Injury Trust works with a number of children who have acquired a brain injury as a result of suffering from meningitis at an early age. One of those families is Ben and his Mother, Sonia. Ben acquired his brain injury after suffering from meningitis and septicaemia when he was just 16 months old.
Upon hearing the news about the meningitis B vaccine, Sonia said:
“Words can’t express how happy I feel about the recent announcement, it really is fantastic to think that every infant will shortly be able to receive this vaccine free of charge and not have to go through the pain and heartache for them or their parents of this terrible disease. The hard work and effort of everybody involved from the generation of the vaccine to the campaigning has finally paid off, really great news!”
The vaccination is likely to become available to children over 2 months from 2015.