Parents forced to pay as NHS bans toddlers from meningitis jabs
WORRIED parents are spending hundreds of pounds getting their toddlers vaccinated against a devastating type of meningitis, because they cannot get the jab on the NHS.
At the start of this month, an NHS programme began to inoculate babies against meningococcal B (MenB) bacteria in England.
The strain kills 30 people a year – mainly children under five – and leaves ten times that number with lifelong health problems. Some victims have to have limbs amputated because of blood poisoning, while others suffer brain damage. The terrifying infection can kill within hours of the first signs showing.
Babies over the age of two months are ordinarily not eligible to receive the new Bexsero jab on the NHS, although there is a temporary facility for those aged up to four months this September. Critics say the cut-off was for cost reasons: introduction of the jab was delayed for more than a year while the Department of Health and makers Novartis haggled over price.
As a result charities and clinics say they are seeing soaring demand for private vaccination – even though it can cost up to £500 for the full threedose course. Enquiries for meningitis jabs have more than doubled in the last year, according to WhatClinic.com, a comparison site for private medical services. It said some 4,300 people had looked for information about meningitis jabs using their website in the past year, compared to about 1,900 searches in the previous 12 months.
The Bexsero jab has been available privately in the UK since December 2013. But experts think the fact it is at last available on the NHS mean more parents are now aware of it. Dr Mariette Grant, of the private Laser Clinic in Cookham, Berkshire, said: ‘It’s difficult to put a price on your health.’
The Meningitis Research Foundation said one couple even told them they would not be paying their mortgage that month, so they could afford to have their children vaccinated.
A spokesman for the charity said: ‘We have been working towards the introduction of MenB vaccination for over 25 years, so were delighted when the Government announced in March that it would be introduced into the childhood immunisation schedule.
‘Since the MenB programme began on September 1, over 100 parents have rung our freephone helpline, 080 8800 3344, to ask for information about getting the vaccine privately.’
A Department of Health spokesman said it was following recommendations laid down by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to vac- cinate two-month-old babies with three doses of Bexsero. They should get the first dose at two months, the second at three or four months, and the last at a year old.
He said the NHS MenB campaign went further than the JCVI recommended, by also including a temporary catch-up programme for babies due their three or fourmonth dose this September.