Meningitis B Vaccine

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ben Howlett]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; as ever, he is fast off the mark in intervening. I agree that urgent action is needed and I will come on to give the reasons why. From the evidence that we heard, there is, in effect, a two-year window for a vaccine’s shelf life, so I hope that when the Minister sums up, she will make that case clear. Previous campaigns on this issue have brought about change, and I can only hope that this campaign has gathered enough momentum to follow in their path.

Before I turn to the evidence that we heard in the joint sessions, I will mention a constituent of mine from Bath. I am sure that many hon. Members here have seen for themselves, as I have, the effects of this awful disease and what it does to those who suffer from it. One case that has particularly moved me is that of my constituent, Harmonie-Rose. She contracted meningitis B when she was just 10 months old. Just a few days after she had taken her first steps, she was taken into hospital with one of the worst cases of the disease that her doctors had ever seen. As she battled to survive, the toxins in her body spread to her limbs. The disease attacked and destroyed the tissue in her arms and legs, meaning that they had to be amputated in order to save her life.

Although Harmonie-Rose eventually recovered, she now lives as a quadruple amputee. Harmonie-Rose is a lovely, bubbly young child, living her life to the absolute full. She is beginning to adapt to her prosthetics; one day, she will have the freedom to move around that we all enjoy.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, and I also congratulate all the people who signed the petition. While this debate in Parliament is very timely, meningitis has in fact been around for a very long time. A constituent wrote to me to say that they were having difficulty getting the vaccination. More importantly, if they had gone private, it could have cost them something like £700, which is very expensive for any family, for any treatment. I wonder what the hon. Gentleman thinks about that.

[Ben Howlett]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is quite right to pick up on the fact that the long-term costs to families need to be taken into account when the JCVI makes its decision about whether to extend vaccinations; I will come on to that issue later. It is quite clear that without the support of many of our constituents—those who fundraise and do so much work to help support families in need—those families would be in a much more challenging situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Howlett]

Yes. I do not think JCVI gives as much consideration to peace of mind as it should. From speaking to the parents of Harmonie-Rose and others, I know that that sense of reassurance is in many instances unquantifiable, which makes it difficult for the JCVI to base a decision on peace of mind, but at the end of the day, my opinion, from the evidence we heard in the Committee hearings, is that we need a review of these matters.

As was highlighted repeatedly during the evidence sessions, the exact effect of the vaccine is still unknown, and parents should not ignore any potential signs of the disease just because their child has been immunised. They may still contract the disease, although the chance is much smaller. As ever, early identification is key. The families and experts we heard from stressed the need for strengthened education campaigns highlighting the symptoms of meningitis B, which include a rash that spreads quickly across the body, a high temperature with ice-cold feet and hands, and babies who are agitated and refusing to feed. While it is important that all parents receive that information, it also needs to be targeted at all those with responsibility for children, including childminders, teachers and nurses.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

One of the things that struck me was that there has always been difficulty negotiating the price of drugs with manufacturers. Has the hon. Gentleman come across any evidence that in this case that could contribute to any delays with progress?

[Ben Howlett]

I have not yet seen that evidence, because we are a couple of stages away from that point. Compared with some of the other long-term battles in this place to get access to particular drugs, the conversations that were had with GlaxoSmithKline when the immunisation programme went up to the age of one were particularly small. Longer term, there is obviously a wider conversation that we need to have around access to medicines, if we are going into a world where everybody will, effectively, have a rare disease. We know even more now about genetics and the genome. The system is not set up to help the 68 million people in our country to access medicines in a quick way. That system needs to be created, and the work that the Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences is doing is leading the way on that. I call on all Members in the Chamber to help speed up that process, and to put pressure on the Government to come up with an accelerated access to medicines review as quickly as possible to help the people that the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) identified.

While we decide what needs to be done, we need to be thankful to the public for raising so much money to support the families living with the reality of a child having meningitis B, and thankful to the charities that provide them with financial, emotional and practical support. Only yesterday, some of the London marathon runners, including seven Members of Parliament, raised thousands of pounds to support such families. Such efforts are vital to providing support, and I know that families are thankful for those efforts. I am tremendously proud to represent a constituency where thousands of pounds have been donated and fundraised for Harmonie-Rose. I know the family are immensely grateful for all the support.

In summary, I am honoured to have been able to open today’s debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. It is unsurprising that this campaign has gathered so much attention following the sad stories in the media. I hope that the Government listen to the widespread calls for a change in policy, and I hope that they have a one-off catch-up vaccination programme for those up to the age of five to put parents’ minds at rest while research is conducted into the impact on adolescents and the spread of this horrendous disease.