To be angry at the government for not vaccinating our teens against Meningitis B.

[Socrossrightnow]

Back in January I became aware that there was a vaccine for meningitis B that we could pay for privately. My son is starting uni in September and I thought we would the save the money to have him vaccinated privately but hadn’t booked an appointment yet. I signed a petition started by a family that had lost their son to meningitis B too. Now the terrible tragedy has unfolded. I’m also confused why they are vaccinating some young people who attended the night club. From what I understand it takes weeks for vaccine to work after 2 doses a month apart. Why can’t this be done nationally ?

Not for the children born in early 2015 my DD was born in early 2015 and just missed out on tha vaccine

think they should be vaccinated so they can have normal lives and not live in fear of some disease meaning they have to hide away every few years.

What? Who is not leading a normal life? Who has said anything about anyone having to 'hide away'? Even students on the Canterbury campus haven't been told to isolate.

There are likely to be 350-400 cases of Men B per year (not sure if that's UK or just England). There were nearly 3000 cases of measles in 2024. About 5,500 cases of TB in 2025. Where should resources be focused?

I understand the point you’re making but the government can’t protect everyone from everything. How much would this cost? Where would money but cut to pay for it? On balance is it value for money? It’s easy to say why don’t they do something but it’s not quite so straightforward.

I appreciate you're anxious and worried but, kindly, you have lost all sense of context and reality. In total, 2 people have died from this. Compare that to driving. Every single day 5 people die in car accidents. So, about 35 people have been killed in car accidents in the time its taken for 2 to die from meningitis. Meningitis will fade out very quickly but car accidents will not, people will continue to die every day in car accidents. But yet we don't not go to Tesco or buy a car because car accidents are (in relative terms) common. Statistically you are more likely to die on the way to getting your vaccination than never having it. That's probably a terrible comparator but it makes the point - we cannot throw millions and millions of pounds on something which impacts such a tiny, tiny percentage of the population.

No country in the world does what you want to us do. Surely you must see that it can't be that you are right and every scientist and health department in the world is wrong?

My son is a 2013 baby so it wasn’t in the schedule then and I had him vaccinated privately when he was 4 as a little girl in his reception class died from it. I feel they should have done a catch up programme like they are now doing for the chicken pox vaccine.

What would you cut to pay for this? HPV vaccines? Prep? MMR? Cancer screenings?

The “it saves lives” money isn’t unlimited. All healthcare money has to go where it can do the most good.

Thats not my argument no, the reasons it’s different are readily available in the public domain if you actually want to know and if you’re going to selectively quote me there’s no point in my responding to you further.

Is it not the parents job to get their own kids vaccinated.

I think the fact that the NHS provision of jabs and the schedule seems so comprehensive, we assume that everything needed is covered. Most of us aren't medics and just go by what the official advice is.

The UK schedule is very comprehensive. It is designed to protect as many people as possible from the diseases that have been proven, epidemiologically, to cause the greatest risk to the greatest numbers, at a given age. That’s why it’s a PUBLIC health initiative and not a personal one.

Outbreaks are tragic and worrying but we need to keep some perspective. These vaccination programmes aren’t plucked out of some politicians backside, they’re based on a vast resource of specialists providing epidemiological, immunological and financial risk assessments.

Yes I got mine vaccinated privately (actually in 2014, before it was rolled out in the NHS).

I'll follow that up with a booster in the sixth form.

The terrible thing about meningitis is the SPEED it can take a young life. Juliette’s parents took action and lost her but imagine all the young people living in isolation in halls of residence and no-one questioning why they haven’t been seen for a day. I am hoping the outcome of this tragedy is that all sixth former /uni students age group will now receive the jab on the NHS

1. All vaccinations carry a risk

2. Unless and until the risk exceeds the cost and rewards of mass vaccination, there is no point in undertaking them.

3. Added to which there is a %age of free thinkers who will refuse any vaccination thus reducing the effectiveness. Go back to (2)

My Aunt died of meningitis after it was misdiagnosed as flu in 1993. She was airlifted to the main hospital after they realised what it was.

I got my DCs vaccinated privately in 2012 before it was offered on the NHS - apparently it's most dangerous in the under 5s. I always planned to do a booster when they got to 6th form/university age which is the second "danger age" but tbh I forgot about it - its only because of this panic that I was reminded. While I don't think it is down to the NHS to provide this, I wish there had been a bit more awareness as to be honest I got a bit confused with the other meningitis vaccination and had originally though that the one they got at school in year 9 was the booster they needed!!! I think because the government only implemented it for babies in 2015 the kids that received it are not yet at the age when its sensible to give a booster - perhaps the NHS will start adding it from 2030?

We did too. Just seen Dr Amir Khan on Instagram say that boosters are needed in teen years

The US and 12 European countries have a MenB vaccine on the schedule.

According to an article on Politico: In Europe, 12 countries routinely offer the vaccine to infants for free — the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal and Spain. Croatia and Poland offer it to children and adults with compromised immune systems. Austria recommends the vaccine in infants but doesn't fund it.
Meanwhile, 12 countries — Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden — don't offer the vaccine at all.
Seventeen EU countries offer vaccination against meningococcal serogroups A, C, Y and W."

I don't think OP is being entirely unreasonable given that data, and we've seen with RFK Jr's attempts to alter the US schedule that Denmark is a complete outlier that should probably be discarded.

My step brother had men b at 18 in the late 1990s so it was on my list of things to do when DS was applying to uni. But he had a gap year and just kept putting it off.
Unfortunately he is a typical, live life to the full student now so probably falls into the at risk group.
Meningitis Now have an easily accessible campaign available to unis, and many now include all the available literature in their wellcome packs. I made sure I pinned the advice to DS’s notice board when we helped him unpack in his first year in halls.

He was ill during his first term, probably flu, but when he rings me saying he’s unwell I take him seriously because he’s never ill. So when he rang to ask me to fetch him I knew it was serious. Up until that point he was living the student life and had no interest in coming home. Unfortunately I was by the bedside of my terminally ill DSis who died a few hours later so was a little distracted. I went through the advice with him and texted him regularly through the day. I did go and fetch him and he was poorly but thankfully it wasn’t meningitis.

I regularly drill into him how important it is to let his flatmates know that he is unwell and to ask them to check on him. The same goes for checking his flatmates if they are ill. He share a flat with two friends from home, they’ve been friends for years so have no problem with being vigilant.

I agree that the current uni students should be offered the vaccination in light of the recent outbreak. They also need to fully investigate the transmission route so that specific behaviours that seem to have encouraged this event are known and advice given.

"In Europe, 12 countries routinely offer the vaccine to infants for free — the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal and Spain. Croatia and Poland offer it to children and adults with compromised immune systems."

Not sure what point you are trying to make here. The UK also offers it to children / babies since 2015 but decided it was not cost effective to do so for teenagers, because the risk is very low.

No one complained when COVID vaccine was not otfered to young kids (even though a few did die from it ) because it was not a significant risk.

Even now eligibility for the COVID vaccines are tighter and tighter due to the risk analysis and the temporary nature of immunity; but people are free up pay for the jabs privately; just like menB

I'm in a US state where 12/13 year olds get the first ACWY shot, followed by the booster at age 16/17. The MenB shot can be done at age 17 and is strongly advised if a teen is planning to go to university. Most universities require proof of the ACWY vaccine before you turn up to register.

I didn’t know about the vaccine and would have paid for both my DC to have it.

I paid for DS1 to have the HPV vaccine as his age group missed the one offered to DS2 age group at school. As it happened the nurses missed DS2 off the list at school so we took him to an 0-19 clinic to get it done.

Ours automatically have the ACWY in the UK but never offered B

This risk isn’t low though.

The groups most at risk of becoming ill are babies and young children under five, followed by teenagers and young people aged 15 to 24.

If your son is a teenager then you need to blame the successive governments of the last 20 years. Given that the data shows that under 4s are most at risk from the B strain and that other strains are part of vaccine programmes I think it’s reasonable to say that successive government policy on this is correct.

This outbreak is unprecedented, if it wasn’t there would be news stories every week of outbreaks. They are rare.

No harm getting the vaccine if you can but being angry at government policy on this doesn’t make a lot of sense.

"The UK also offers it to children / babies since 2015 but decided it was not cost effective to do so for teenagers, because the risk is very low"

".This risk isn’t low though.
The groups most at risk of becoming ill are babies and young children under five, followed by teenagers and young people aged 15 to 24"

As I said, the government / jcvi decided it was cost effective and worthwhile for young kids but not teenagers/ young adults...

I think they are rolling out the vaccine because they don't want mass panic and to repeat covid failures. I live in the city, we have had multiple outbreaks of meningitis before on the campus, the difference is this one is post-covid. The press are talking about 'strains' and 'peaks' and 'waves', using the same terminology as Covid and riling people up by linking completely unrelated instances of meningitis to this 'outbreak' - a man in tenerife has meningitis and has never been to Kent = must be this new 'strain' travelling and will kill us all rather than it being completely unconnected. The university has also been on the brink of collapse for the last few years. If it is as seen as a hotbed for deadly viruses and this drops student numbers for september as applicants get scared off, the whole place could go under, so this is as much as financial support for the university as well as the health outcomes.