Meningitis vaccines on the way

Thursday 25 June 2015

All Jersey babies and teenagers heading off the Island to university in September can soon be vaccinated against meningitis.

The Health department is following the UK's nationwide move and will be offering two new immunisation programmes this summer to protect Islanders against the deadly brain infection.

University freshers will be offered the MenACWY vaccine in August and Health are urging teenagers to get the jab before they leave the Island.

Jersey teenager Sundeep Watts died from bacterial meningitis at the age of 19 when he was away studying at University back in 2007 and Health say cases of the devastating disease are on the rise.

Dr Diggle said: “The UK has seen a dramatic increase in meningococcal disease caused by an aggressive MenW strain of bacteria and it’s important that our young people, heading off to university for the first time, get this protection at least a couple of weeks before they arrive at their University.

“We haven’t yet seen any MenW disease in Jersey, but because patterns of infectious diseases here and elsewhere around the British Isles have always tended to be similar, the current MenW disease outbreak in the UK could spread into Jersey.

“To prevent this happening, we’re also going to be offering MenACWY vaccine to around 4,000 teenagers within schools.”

Batches of the MenB vaccine are expected to arrive in the Island in September when the department will be writing to parents who have very young babies to offer them jabs at two month's old.

Around 1,200 people, mainly babies and children get meningitis caused by the meningococcal group B bacteria each year in the UK.

Dr Diggle said: “In Jersey, we have seen some 12 meningococcal disease cases in the last 14 years – most of these were MenB cases. Babies are at higher risk of bacterial meningitis than any other age group so offering MenB vaccine to young babies is really important and UK Department of Health surveys have consistently shown that meningitis is the illness parents of young children fear the most.”

Health will be advertising the dates and places in town where they will be offering the jabs later this summer and say they’ll let parents know when their campaign to vaccinate teenagers at school begins.