Meningitis vaccine ‘could save dozens of lives’

DOZENS of lives could be saved if the Government introduced a vaccine preventing deadly diseases such as meningitis, pneumonia and septicaemia.

The vaccine, which could save up to 132 lives annually in this country, was available for the past five years and was used in the North and other European states.

The Meningitis Research Foundation and the Meningitis Trust both demanded that a routine vaccination against Invasive Pneumococcal Disease was introduced as part of routine childhood immunisation.

“Pneumococcal meningitis, the second-most common type of bacterial meningitis in Ireland, is more deadly and disabling than other forms,” said Linda Glennie, head of research at the Meningitis Research Foundation.

“An effective vaccine has been available for five years, and many other European countries now use it.”

The foundation called for the Government to set out a clear timetable for the introduction of the vaccine to protect all babies.

Dr Peter Finnegan, a consultant in public health medicine in the HSE North-Eastern Region, said: “Pneumococcal disease is the most common preventable disease in Ireland. It is important that we introduce the vaccine as soon as possible.”

Countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Mexico have joined the likes of the US, France and Italy in making the vaccine available to all children.

Dr Finnegan said: “Pneumococcal infection is far more severe. It has almost twice as many deaths as the other types of vaccination and also 50% of the children who get pneumococcal meningitis have very severe problems afterwards — epilepsy, cerebral palsy type symptoms or intellectual impairment.

“So it is quite a nasty bug and one which we would like to see eliminated.”

Karen Jordan said her son Adam had contracted pneumococcal meningitis last February at just seven-months-old.

“When I learnt that there was a vaccine available which could have prevented Adam from contracting this disease — but that our Government had decided only to make it available to children they considered at risk — I was so angry,” she said.

“He suffered needlessly.”

The disease mainly occurs among the elderly and very young children, with 238 cases reported in the first 36 weeks of the year.

About 82 cases of pneumococcal meningitis, one of the diseases caused by the bacteria, were reported in children under 18 years of age between 1999 and 2005.

In Ireland, only children deemed ‘at risk’ of infection are currently immunised against pneumococcal disease. The introduction of the vaccine has been under consideration by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) since 2001 but a decision has not yet been made.

Dr Monica Farley, Professor of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said the incidence of serious invasive infections in children under the age of five decreased by 94% by the end of 2003, compared to rates in 1998-1999, when the vaccine was introduced in the US.”