Meningitis B vaccine should be offered to all UK teenagers, advisers say
Health advisers are pushing the UK government to offer the meningitis B vaccine to all teenagers on the NHS, in a move that experts say could save dozens of lives every year and prevent cases of life-altering disability.
The recommendation, made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), would extend a jab currently available to babies to a much older age group — specifically those aged around 14 to 18. Meningococcal group B disease, which causes the majority of bacterial meningitis cases in the UK, disproportionately affects two groups: infants under one year old, and teenagers. That second peak has long been a gap in the country’s immunisation programme.
Why teenagers are at risk
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable because they tend to socialise in close contact — sharing drinks, living in halls of residence, attending crowded events. The bacteria spreads through saliva and respiratory droplets, and teenagers carry it at higher rates than almost any other age group. It’s a combination that creates real danger.
Around 100 to 150 cases of meningitis B are recorded in teenagers and young adults in England each year. But the numbers don’t fully capture the devastation. Even with fast treatment, roughly one in ten people who contract bacterial meningitis won’t survive. Many who do are left with permanent hearing loss, brain damage, or amputations.
What the JCVI is recommending
The JCVI’s advice is not yet binding — it’s a formal recommendation to ministers, who will ultimately decide whether to commission the vaccine. But committees like this one carry significant weight in shaping NHS policy, and their recommendations are rarely rejected outright.
A spokesperson for the UK Health Security Agency said the recommendation would now be carefully considered alongside cost-effectiveness data and existing NHS priorities.
Still, the cost question is real. The Bexsero vaccine, which is already used in the infant programme, isn’t cheap. Negotiations with manufacturer GSK would need to take place before any rollout. And the NHS, stretched across multiple competing pressures, doesn’t expand vaccination programmes lightly.
Families and campaigners welcome the news
For campaigners who’ve spent years pushing for exactly this, the JCVI’s recommendation feels like a turning point.
Meningitis Now and the Meningitis Research Foundation have both been vocal in lobbying for the teenage programme, citing stories of young people who contracted the disease weeks after starting university — healthy one day, fighting for their lives the next.
And many parents remain unaware that the protection babies receive doesn’t last into adolescence.
What happens next
The government is expected to respond to the JCVI recommendation within the coming months. If ministers give the green light, NHS England would then need to plan the logistics of delivery — likely through schools, GP surgeries, or existing teenage immunisation programmes.
It won’t happen overnight. But if it does happen, it could mean that by 2026 or 2027, every teenager in England is offered protection against one of the most feared infections in medicine.
