We know that many parents wish to have their children vaccinated against Meningitis B and there is currently a lot of publicity about this.
We wish to reassure parents of children born after 1st May 2015 that the NHS has a vaccination programme in place and there is sufficient vaccine available for this programme.
At this time the NHS does not have a programme in place for older children. We have been clearly instructed by NHS England that we cannot give our stock of this vaccine to children outside of the NHS programme. We are also not allowed to provide this vaccine to our registered patients on a private (chargeable) basis.
We do know that there are private clinics offering this service and they will be able to advise you on to go about getting your child vaccinated. As a guide, most children will require 2 doses (depending on their age) and the typical cost for both doses will be around £200.
However, the company (GSK) who manufacture the Bexsero vaccine have released this statement:
"Due to unexpected global demand for Bexsero during 2015, we are experiencing supply constraints during the first half of this year. Although vaccination through the NHS childhood programme has been prioritised and is unaffected, we have unfortunately had to ask private clinics temporarily to not start new courses of vaccination. Children who have already started their course of the vaccine privately should still be able to receive their follow-up doses. We know the unexpectedly high demand for the vaccine reflects the importance parents have placed on protecting their children from meningitis B, so we are working hard to increase supply, and expect to have increased stock by summer 2016."
