Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation last reviewed the cost-effectiveness model for providing the Meningitis B vaccine to teenagers; and whether his Department plans to commission an updated model.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In 2013, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised that the cost-effectiveness of an adolescent Meningitis B (MenB) vaccination programme would be dependent on the impact of the vaccine on protection against meningococcal carriage, which was uncertain at the time. Since this advice was published, the JCVI has continued to review the MenB vaccination programme. Recent evidence, discussed by the JCVI meningococcal sub-committee in March 2025, indicated that MenB vaccination in adolescents has little to no effect on meningococcal carriage.

The sub-committee noted that when available, they would like to review a model evaluating the impact of MenB vaccine when given in a teenage programme in a two-dose schedule, including impact on meningococcal disease and gonorrhoea.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending routine NHS vaccination against Meningitis B to teenagers and first-year university students.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Policy regarding vaccination programmes is based on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The JCVI keeps all vaccination programmes under review, and the meningococcal sub-committee have met a number of times over the past year to discuss the meningococcal vaccination programme. The minutes of all JCVI meetings are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisation#sub-committee-membership-and-minutes

In 2013, the JCVI advised that the cost-effectiveness of an adolescent Meningitis B (MenB) vaccination programme would be dependent on the impact of the vaccine on protection against meningococcal carriage, which was uncertain at the time. Recent evidence considered by the meningococcal sub-committee indicates that MenB vaccines do not protect against carriage of meningococcus serogroup B in adolescents.

The sub-committee noted that when available, they would like to review a model evaluating the impact of the MenB vaccine when given in a teenage programme in a two-dose schedule, including the impact on meningococcal disease and gonorrhoea.

Adolescents remain eligible for the MenACWY vaccine until their 25th birthday.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of Meningitis B cases among teenagers and university students; and what steps he is taking to help reduce that level.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The UK Health Security Agency continually monitors the incidence and profile of invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) in England across all age groups to provide information to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to help inform policy decisions.

The United Kingdom has a world-leading meningococcal vaccine programme, and we were the first country to introduce a national Meningitis C (MenC) vaccine programme in 1999 and an infant programme targeting Meningitis B (MenB) disease in 2015, the year in which the teenage MenACWY vaccination was also introduced.

Cases of IMD in England have fallen from over 2,500 in 1998/99, before the first routine meningococcal vaccination against MenC, was introduced, to 378 cases in 2024/225. The MenACWY vaccine also stops carriage and transmission. With this high population-level control of MenACWY disease, MenB disease accounted for 313 of the 378, or 83% of, cases in 2024/25.

MenB remains rare but is now the leading cause of meningococcal disease in all age groups in England, including teenagers and young adults. Further information for the 2024 to 2025 epidemiological year, running from July 2024 to June 2025, is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/meningococcal-disease-laboratory-confirmed-cases-in-england-2024-to-2025