You will have seen news of meningitis B outbreaks in university campuses in England and as a result the NHS in the UK has decided to establish a targeted vaccination programme to control the situation and protect students going to university.

The NHS tends to focus most of the children’s vaccination programmes on GP practices as patients have a relationship of trust with their GPs and this vaccination scheme for university students is no exception.

Meningitis is an infection of the brain and spinal column which is a very serious infection leading to complications and rarely in the most severe cases to sepsis and death. When I started working in general practice I would’ve seen cases of meningitis every week often due to the milder viral meningitis but sometimes due to meningococcal meningitis which was greatly feared by young mothers. The Derry Journal would warn of the most recent meningitis outbreak on its front page and GPs would then be very busy seeing lots of children - trying to find the needle in the haystack, the one child with meningitis among all of the coughs, colds and sore throats.

The vaccination programmes were expanded greatly in the 1980s and 1990s to include vaccines against various forms of meningitis. The HIB vaccine was first introduced in 1992 and we noticed an immediate reduction in cases of meningitis as it was at that time the most common form of bacterial meningitis. The HIB vaccine of course also prevented another very serious illness called epiglottitis which is now so rare that most people have never even heard of it.

The MMR vaccine introduced in 1988 protects children from measles, mumps and rubella but it’s mostly forgotten that mumps was the most common form of viral meningitis at that time so again GPs noticed a decrease in meningitis cases because of the MMR vaccine.

Babies in the UK also get Meningococcal B vaccination and teenagers get meningococcal ACWY vaccination at age 13-14 years and these vaccinations will protect children and teenagers from the most common and serious forms of meningitis at present.

The targeted Men B programme will run until March 31, 2027 and it offers vaccination to all those with a date of birth between July 2, 2007 to July 1, 2008 regardless of whether they have left school or what their education plans are. The vaccination programme will also cover those who are under 25 years and are starting higher education (university) or residential further education (e.g. agricultural college).

This meningococcal B vaccination will need two doses, 28 days apart to be effective and patients can contact their GP practice to find out if they’re taking part in this targeted programme.

March 2026: Students queue for the Meningitis B vaccine outside the sports hall on the University of Kent. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

What have these recent outbreaks of Men B taught us?

Infections from viruses and bacteria will always try to bypass our natural immunity and the immunity created for us by the extensive vaccination programmes in the NHS. Herd immunity to infections which requires more than 85-90% of the population being vaccinated is decreasing due to vaccine scepticism and unfortunately we will see more outbreaks of a variety of infections in the future. If you want to protect your children make sure they’re vaccinated. Due to decreasing herd immunity unvaccinated children will be more at risk than ever before.