Men B vaccine petition update

Offering the meningitis B vaccine to all children is “not cost effective” and would be a waste of NHS money, the UK government has said.

Public support for extending the vaccine grew after the mother of two-year-old Faye Burdett shared pictures of her dying from the infection.  The jab is currently offered to children in their first year of life, but more than 800,000 people signed a petition for it to be given to all children under 11.

Faye, from Maidstone, died on Valentine’s Day after fighting the infection for 11 days. Her mother Jenny said the family had endured “a pain you cannot describe”.  Then, soon after, ex-England rugby captain Matt Dawson talked publicly about how his two-year-old son Sam survived meningitis after “two weeks of hell”.

In response to the most popular petition in parliamentary history, the Department of Health said it was following the expert advice of its Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

It said: “With this programme, our priority is to protect those children most at risk of Men B, in line with JCVI’s recommendation…Offering the vaccine outside of JCVI’s advice would not be cost effective, and would not therefore represent a good use of NHS resources which should be used to benefit the health and care of the most people possible….While this is extremely difficult for parents whose children aren’t eligible, there is no other way of establishing new programmes to target those at highest risk without introducing inequalities.”

The issue is still scheduled to be debated in the House of Commons.

Lee Booth, who set up the petition, said: “It’s very disappointing that that’s the initial sort of reaction to the campaign…it beggars belief really that the government are putting costs ahead of saving childrens’ lives.”

For more on this story, see the BBC article here