Meningitis and/or HPV vaccination before uni?

[NeedingCoffee]

DS is, I think, a couple of years too old to have had one of the meningitis strains vaccine as a toddler and was also a year too old to be offered HPV... again I need to check that as I have menopause-brain, but I seem to think DD has had HPV (she's a school year younger), but not DS. And that neither have had one of the meningitis ones.

Has anyone has these done privately before uni? Any advice on providers, cost etc? And any medically-informed advice on whether it's a good idea to consider would of course be amazing!

Try Boots or your GP certainly a very good idea.

Yes, most students starting university this year or next year won't have got the Men B vaccine as babies. It is expensive to get it done privately (£110 X 2), but the more people who get it done the more cohort immunity there will be. You can book appointments online with Boots or Superdrug.

www.nhs.uk/vaccinations/menb-vaccine/
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6930067/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/meningitis/why-your-child-needs-the-meningitis-b-vaccine-before-college
https://www.meningitisnow.org/get-support/supporting-young-people/meningitis-in-students/
The statement on this UCL page that most UK students have had the MenB vaccine is incorrect, but is often repeated. I checked with the GP -- it is not true for kids that are 18 today. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/support-and-wellbeing-services/physical-health-support/vaccinations
Hope that helps.

He can have HPV via the GP up to 25 years old, then it would be private.
Meningitis ACWY you’d get from the GP, if he didn’t have it in high school.
If he’s missed those two, you need to check he’s had his diphtheria, tetanus and polio , which is usually given with the ACWY

My children had the meningitis vaccination at school. If they miss it they can have it at the GPs. One of my friends is employed by a private company on behalf of the NHS and goes round vaccinating teens who have missed their slots.

My brother caught meningitis in his first term at university back in the 1980s, it was really scary.

Yes, at Boots (one comes in two doses, seem to remember).

Thanks for this - and the poster above -that's reminded me which is which. He has had everything offered, so he's had ACWY (plus all the other baby and toddler vaccines and the boosters at 13), but won't have had B.

And I don't think he's had HPV (need to check).

That's great, thanks. I'll see if I can get him booked in to get those. Just need to Google the necessary gap between the 2x Men B...

I'm fairly certain that today's young adults had HPV at school -- mine did.
Yes, the key thing is the difference between Men ACWY vax, which today's young adults had, and Men B, which they have not (unless they have special health conditions). There is a lot of unawareness of this, because I suppose the state can't afford to vaccinate everyone retrospectively so don't want it to be a talking point.

HPV vaccination for boys was introduced from September 2019, so all boys who were in year 8 in that year (current year 13) or subsequently should have been offered it as part of the school vaccination programme.

Just looked at Boots, which helpfully explains that the NHS only started vaccinating against Men B for babies born after July 2015! So there will still be nearly a decade of young adults going to uni without it. Seems madness when Boots also say it's the most common form of meningitis in the UK.

We vaccinated for Men B privately as both were too old. It’s a tough vaccination but worth it.

My doctor recommended Meningitis B vaccine for any child attending University. Have to get it privately in the UK but worth it if you can afford it. Not Uni but I was on an employee training course in the early 2000 & one of my colleagues got it. Had a bad headache so skipped the afternoon training session to go lie down. Thank god we checked on him before we went to dinner. Not sure what would have happened if we’d just let him sleep. It comes on so quickly & unless you have someone looking out for you so easy to miss how sick you really are.

I believe the AWCY meningitis vaccine van be given by the GP practice up until the age of 25. The student should have it before starting university, ideally a minimum of 2 weeks before.

The Men B vaccine is available privately. I had my then 5 year old vaccinated, as he was too old to have it on the NHS. He needed 2 doses at £152 per dose. We went to our local Nuffield Hospital through their private GP practice. I'm a bacterial meningitis and septicemia survivor. If you can afford for your child to have the Men B vaccine, please do. It's one of the most common strains and the disease is horrendous, I wouldn't wish it on another person.

We had Men B done for both DCs in their early teens at Boots (you get lots of Advantage points but the booking system was a bit of a pain - I can't remember what age they treat you as an adult but we found not many branches would do children so it might be worth checking that if they are still
under 18). We also had HPV done for DS there but that was before they started doing it for boys at all so he couldn't have it on the NHS.

We had my youngest vaccinated for men b. Cost £220 through superdrug, was easy to arrange and worth it for the leave of mind

Sorry to be a broken record but Men B Vax (which needs to be got privately, if at all, for most people over a certain age 14?) in UK and Ireland) is different from Men ACWY vax (available to all on NHS). Men B is the more dangerous form of meningitis for young adults.

Thanks for looking that up and sharing it - I was only saying the other day to my yr 11 daughter that I wantd her to have it before she went to uni and she was adamant she'd had it - but I was pretty sure she hadn't as I had looked into all 3 of my kids having it a few years ago. The younger ones were born in 2012 so they wouldn't have had it either. Luckily all of mine got their HPV done at school.

DD(17) has been having a series of travel jabs with a local pharmacy (so we’ve probably spent a good hour chatting to the pharmacist about pros and cons of vaccine versus disease over the past couple of months). We plan to schedule Men B (2 doses a month apart-£120 each) and flu (expected to be released in September) before Uni, having discussed these during our final rabies appointment!

He pointed out that cases are dropping because <10’s have good coverage, BUT very few students have protection and new students will be mixing/living in high density conditions with strangers from all across the world.

DD was given HPV at school 4 years ago and MenACWY 2 years ago (delayed because of Covid).

Helpfully the school health team didn’t update her NHS record (but were able to give us the details for our surgery to do it).

DD will be the opposite end of the country to me, so I’d prefer to be able to rule out some of the more serious illnesses if/when she gets Freshers Flu!

This has just appeared on WIWIKAU on Facebook. Here is the info leaflet:
https://meningitis-now.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/documents/Meningitis_in_teenagers_and_young_people.pdf?

I remember reading this thread then promptly forgot. DS goes off to uni in 2 weeks. Is it worth rushing to get 1 dose in before he starts or have I missed the boat? I've tried googling to see how much immunity from 1 jab but I can't see anything.

I suspect that’s true. I work for an ICB so I went directly to the immunisations pharmacist and asked about meningitis B for my 18 DS and she didn’t know if he would have had it via school!

I think it's the new meningitis strands are the ones to vaccinate against, they are more lethal.

My kids had the HPV vaccinations in their very early teens (2 doses each) so that was done. They had the new meningitis vac's more recently.

Well the fact that so many are vaccinated against the other variants (ACWY) might mean that B has risen as a proportion of cases seen.

He could have one now and then another at Uni? You could book and pay for it. DD had both doses at Boots ( different branches). We tried local chemists but they kept getting confused about the one they get at school and B. Boots were very on it.

Important to make sure they’ve also had two doses of MMR.