New Meningitis Vacine, why for only the under 2's?

[BROWNY]

Does anyone know why this new vacine is only for age 2 and under? Surely it would be beneficial for all children. Does anyone have any more information please?

Money primarily, I think, but also that the under 2's are in the highest risk category. There's been a couple of other threads about it in the last couple of days that cover it in more detail if you search the archives.

I'm a bit gutted as dd and dc3 will get it but ds who's 2.8 won't. Think you can pay to have it done privately though.

I thought it was going to be done in waves
as in first of all they do the under 2's and then go onto the next age group
but because I avoid the news like the plague for my own emotional sanity, i coud be talking bollocks, just something I heard

Thanks Olihan, I'll search the archives now .

Trinityshiftingherleatheryarse, I try to avoid the news too, that's why I'm asking you clever lot .

Under 2's are the highest risk group. Any vaccine can have side effects so it's worth making sure it's being given to the right age group iyswim. Men C for example is most common in teenagers/young adults, then babies- very rare in childhood so when they introoduced that they gave it to teenagers/university sutdents first.

There is a technical response to this - but I suspect it goes beyond that.

Pneumovax is a polysaccharide vaccine - which isn't suitable to children under 2 years as they don't generate an immune response. As a result of this they give prevenar which is a conjugate vaccine & does give an immune response in babies.

The protection from pneumovax is actually better than prevenar - it covers more pneuococcal variants. It is therefore preferable to immunise over 2s with pneumovax. Having said that I have just checked 2 NHS sources (immunisations.nhs.uk & the official Prevenar leaflet) and they contradict each other as to which vaccine is used between 2 & 5yrs.

There is a bar chart on the official leaflet which shows that under 2s (& over 60s) are at highest risk. That is probably the main reason why over 2s are not routinely on the pneumococcal program (irrepective oof which vaccine is used...)

I asked my gp yesterday about Pneumovax for my 2.9 year old. She said it wasn't available until November, and even then I'd probably have to get it done privately.

Pneumovax is only available on the NHS for high risk groups - if you are entitled to a flu jab because of a chronic condition then you will usually be able to get pneumovax too.