Meningitis B Vaccinations

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise the important matter of meningococcal B—or MenB—vaccines in this short debate. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), for kindly responding on behalf of the Government. I appreciate that I have dragged her to these green Benches at a time when she might well be negotiating with the drugs companies and it might be difficult for her to respond to every one of my points. Nevertheless, she will understand that I must make them on behalf of my constituents and other members of the public.

There will be a number of hon. Members in this House with constituents whose lives have been affected by meningitis B. I have constituents who have had to deal with the suffering and loss caused by meningitis B, which is why I am here today further to raise the need for a national roll-out of the vaccination. My constituents, Dr and Mrs Turner, who are here today, tragically lost their 19-year-old granddaughter on new year’s day this year. As you are aware, Mr Speaker, their granddaughter, Emily, and her parents are constituents of yours. Emily’s uncle is a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray).

Meningitis B is a comparatively rare disease, with about 1,800 cases in the UK each year. According to the charity Meningitis UK, however, many thousands of people die as a result of contracting the illness. The infection progresses rapidly and can lead to permanent disability or death within 24 hours of the symptoms becoming evident. That is sadly what happened to Emily. One in 10 people who contract the infection will tragically die despite the treatment that is available today. Of those who survive, one in five will have devastating life-long disability such as brain damage, hearing loss or limb damage.

Infants under the age of one year are disproportionately affected by meningitis B, with the number of cases peaking at the age of about five to six months. However, there is unfortunately another peak during late adolescence when students mix at university. Those are the two age groups that are most likely to contract meningitis B and the fact that there is another peak later in life highlights the need for a vaccine during infancy to protect people from lifelong suffering from this potentially devastating disease.

Parents up and down the country were given a sense of hope when in January 2013 a vaccine was licensed in the UK as well as in Europe and the US. The Bexsero vaccine was developed by the drug company Novartis and protects against approximately 73% of the different strains of meningitis B with apparently limited side effects. That was obviously very welcome, but there have been extremely long and costly delays in implementing any vaccination programme. The vaccine was turned down by the NHS after being considered by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

The passion felt by many members of the public that the vaccination should have been implemented straightaway has resulted in various petitions urging the Government to do so. The charity Meningitis Now, which I heartily and sincerely congratulate on its constant campaigning, delivered a petition of 36,000 signatures to Downing street. My constituents organised a petition of around 5,000 signatures and I had great pleasure in presenting that petition to Parliament earlier this evening.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for bringing this matter forward for consideration. Meningitis B numbers have halved in the past 25 years, but there is no room for complacency. Some of my constituents have experienced devastating effects from meningitis, so, as the MP for Strangford, my issue is whether the hon. Gentleman feels that the vaccine, when it becomes available, should be available to the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I shall discuss later, this is obviously a big and costly undertaking for the NHS. As I am sure the Minister will mention later, there are delicate negotiations to be had, but if we start with babies—preferably babies under the age of 12 months—and then roll it out to students, the whole population will eventually have been vaccinated. Perhaps that will take too long, and once we have vaccinated those cohorts of the population, we might be able to find the money later to vaccinate other cohorts, but let us start, for goodness’ sake. In particular, vaccinating young babies would be an important start.

In my view, and in the view of many others, the Bexsero vaccine should have been rolled out immediately. Doing so could have prevented around 600 cases of meningitis B, and the associated 200 deaths between January 2013 and now. Although there have been delays in rolling out this vaccine on a national scale in the UK, it has been available privately since December 2013 for parents able to pay the high price, and it has been used across several university campuses in the United States. I am sure the House would agree that it is unsatisfactory that where a vaccine has been licensed and is available for use, only those who can afford to pay can get it.