A vaccine for meningitis B is not going to be added to the 26 vaccinations that a UK child will receive within the first 13 months of life. The UK’s vaccine regulators do not believe there is enough evidence to suggest that the Bexsero vaccine is effective.
Although the new vaccine has been granted a licence by the European Commission, no country has included it in its vaccine schedule. The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said the vaccine, manufactured by Novartis, is not cost-effective, and does not offer enough protection; data they studied suggested it its effective against 73 per cent of the different strains of the disease.
The UK vaccine schedule offers a vaccine against meningitis C, which is a rarer form of the disease; the B variety is responsible for around 90 per cent of cases of meningitis, which infects around 1,870 Britons a year.
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