Protect ‘children against deadly bug’

MENINGITIS charities have repeated their call for all children to be vaccinated against a bug that can cause the disease and other life-threatening illnesses.

The Meningitis Research Foundation and Meningitis Trust say the pneumococcal vaccine, which can prevent pneumonia, septicaemia and a strain of meningitis, should be automatically included in the national childhood immunisation programme.

However, the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, which considers the usefulness of new vaccines on the market, has yet to give the go-ahead for it to be made available.

There have been 86 cases of pneumococcal meningitis and eight deaths from the disease in Ireland since 2002. It is estimated 132 deaths from all forms of pneumococcal disease, including pneumonia and septicaemia, could be prevented annually if the vaccine was part of the immunisation programme.

It is currently only recommended for the elderly as well as for adults and children over two years of age with specific chronic medical conditions that make them more susceptible to pneumococcal infection. Only the vaccine against the ‘C’ strain of meningitis is universally administered.

Meningitis Trust and the Meningitis Research Foundation have collected 12,000 postcards and e-cards from parents petitioning the Minister for Health and Children to introduce the pneumococcal vaccine for all children.

Carole Nealon, the general manager of Meningitis Trust said: “Pneumococcal meningitis is the second most common preventable form of bacterial meningitis, against which we do not routinely vaccinate. With all of the information available to the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, why is it taking so long for a decision to be reached?”

The charities say that not only do children die, but the severity of pneumococcal meningitis means at least half of survivors are left with lifelong after-effects. In as many as 15% of cases, these are as serious as deafness, paralysis, epilepsy, and learning impairment.

Public health experts have had reservations about mass immunisation with the vaccine, partly because healthy young and middle-aged adults rarely contract pneumococcal disease and because its effectiveness on children under two was in some doubt.

The inclusion of the vaccine in the normal childhood immunisation programme in Northern Ireland from last month, however, means the Republic is one of only a handful of countries in Western Europe not routinely providing it.

Diane McConnell of Meningitis Research Foundation noted: “We are now heading towards the winter period when babies and young children are most susceptible to meningitis and septicaemia. It is imperative that pneumococcal vaccine is introduced into the childhood immunisation schedule as soon as possible to ensure that children’s lives are not put at risk.”

A spokeswoman for the Health Service Executive said no decision had been made yet by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee. “They are currently reviewing the entire immunisation programme and this forms a part of that review,” she said.