Teenagers from 15 should be given free MenB vaccine, say UK experts
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- JCVI reversed its previous position and now recommends the MenB vaccine be offered routinely to teenagers around age 15, based on 'recent new evidence' that their socially active lifestyles put them at higher risk.
- Two doses are needed for fullest protection in teenagers who have not previously been vaccinated, while those who received the jab as babies would need only a single top-up dose as teens.
- Kent outbreak earlier this year — the UK's largest and fastest-growing — recorded 29 confirmed or suspected meningitis cases and two deaths, prompting panicked parents to buy the vaccine privately from pharmacies.
- Existing programme offers MenB jabs only to babies born on or after 1 July 2015, meaning everyone over 11 has gone without routine protection against the strain as they enter higher-risk years.
- One-off campaign is already launching this summer, offering free MenB jabs at pharmacies to young people heading to university for the first time as well as other eligible groups.
- Ministers in each UK nation must now decide whether to fund routine secondary-school MenB vaccinations through the NHS; Prof Wei Shen Lim said JCVI worked closely with meningitis charities in shaping the new advice.
- Dr Tom Nutt, chief executive of Meningitis Now, called the recommendation a 'significant moment', while National Pharmacy Association chair Olivier Picard said pharmacies are ready to deliver the vaccines.
Why it matters: If UK ministers accept the recommendation, every secondary school student would gain free protection against a disease that can kill within hours or leave survivors with amputations, hearing loss, or brain damage — closing a gap that has left more than a decade of adolescents unprotected since the infant programme began in 2015.
