§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost of the Meningitis Group C vaccination programme has been. [158531]
§ Yvette CooperThe meningitis C immunisation programme, launched in November 1999, has offered vaccine routinely to babies and, in a catch-up programme, to everyone aged under 18. The total cost in England from the start of the programme to the end of the latest financial year (2000–01) is estimated at £290 million (total includes vaccine cost, moneys for general practitioners and nurses to administer the vaccines, publicity and information and changes to computer systems).
§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the secretary of State for Health how many cases of Meningitis C have been reported in the United Kingdom in each year since 1996. [158530]
§ Yvette CooperFigures for the number of laboratory confirmed cases of meningococcal group C disease provided by the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) meningococcal reference unit (MRU) (for England, Wales and Northern Ireland), Cardiff Public Health Laboratory (Wales) or the Scottish Pneumococcal and Meningococcal Reference Laboratory (Scotland) are shown in the table.
Laboratory confirmed cases of meningococcal Group C disease Year England Wales Scotland Northern Ireland United Kingdom 1996 556 49 48 13 666 1997 762 51 56 13 882 1998 766 45 63 16 890 1999 910 72 95 35 1,112 20002 676 40 65 41 822 1 Scottish data include a small number of cases confirmed by serology only 2 2000 data provisional About 50 per cent. of all cases of meningococcal disease are laboratory confirmed, the rest are clinically diagnosed on the basis of symptoms only by the doctors treating the patient. Clinically diagnosed cases must also be reported to the PHLS and other laboratories and this enhanced surveillance allows estimates to be made of the total burden of meningococcal disease caused by each group.
The best estimate of the burden of group C meningococcal disease just before the introduction of the meningitis C conjugate vaccine, adjusted for underreporting and non-typing, was 1,530 cases and 150 deaths in England and Wales in 1998–99. The vaccine has had a huge impact on the disease. During the last six months of 2000, cases in all under 18 years of age were reduced by 71 per cent. with reductions of up to 90 per cent. in those age groups immunised first.