Babies may get meningitis booster

[PicadillyCircus]

Was looking at the news and saw that babies may need to have an extra meningitis booster as having the injections before 5 months has left some babies without long term immunity.

Will put a link on the next post as I've temporarily forgotten how to.

[PicadillyCircus]

here's the link

[Jimjams]

"despite this very few infants were catching meningitis, probably because the rest of the society had been successfully immunised". Or maybe because very few infants get meningtis C anyway. Teenagers and young adults are most at risk from meningitis C. Babies generally get meningitis B.

Interestingly The Vaccination Bible published in 2000 predicted that a booster would need to be introduced and speculated that it was already being planned.

[zebra]

Ah, oh bl88dy 'ell, I hate these whole immunisations hassles. I want to go hide under a rock trying to figure out what to do. My dad nearly died from meningitus, DH had pneumonia from HIb. So I want protection against these, but doesn't sound easy to get, after all!

Hmphhh!

[Jimjams]

well one of the main problems with jabbing babies if you don't give a booster is that the immunity may well wane just as they hit the teenage years -right when they need it. Hibs slightly different - as botttle fed children and /or children in day care ubnder the age if 2 are the risk group.

When men C was introduced in the UK Peltola in Finland who's a right jab em johnny (type his name into Google alon gwith MMR) siad "The question was whether the incidence of the disease was high enough to merit mass immunisation. In no country is there an epidemic..." and then he said in Drugs 1998 55: 347-66 "generally speaking the incidence of meningicoccal disease is too low to indicate vaccinations for the whole population or even children, but some risk groups and epidemics are important exceptions"

i haven't read the original of the drugs article so no idea whether he was talking about B as well.

Meningitis is obviously vile and a frightening frightening disease. Interestingly though when I had a conversation with a publich health official about ds2's lack of jabs he wasn't remotely bothered about him not having had men C vax. He hardly seemed to think it was worth worrying about- he was far more concerned about his lack of MMR. Although personally I'd obviously far rather he got mealses than men C. He obviously thought that men C was very unlikely and therefore not an issue, whereas measles had a higher possibility.....