UK rolls out world’s first Meningitis B vaccines for infants
Starting this month, infants will get Meningitis B (MenB) vaccines as part of the Childhood Immunisation Programme in England. Britain is the first country to have a vaccination programme for the disease that kills one in 10 infected infants.Babies will be vaccinated at two, four, 12 and 13 months to ward of the disease.
Meningitis is an infection of the protective membranes of the brain and the spinal cord. It kills 170,000 people each year, according to the World Helath Organization (WHO). Infants under 1 year old are the most vulnerable to the disease.
“Over the next decade this vaccine could potentially prevent up to 4,000 cases of meningococcal disease in children younger than five years in the UK,” said Christopher Head, from the Meningitis Research Foundation.
Category: Features, Pharmaceuticals
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