§ Mrs. MayTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Green Paper "Our Healthier Nation", if he will make a statement on the Government's policy on(a) the introduction of a universal adolescent hepatitis B vaccination programme and (b) the introduction of a universal meningitis vaccination programme. [53885]
§ Ms JowellPolicy on the use of vaccines to protect against hepatitis B and meningitis is based on the recommendations of independent experts, including the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
The United Kingdom has one of the lowest prevalence rates of hepatitis B carriage in the world. Our policy is to target hepatitis B immunisation at groups at increased risk of infection because of their lifestyle, occupation or other factors such as close contact with a case or carrier of hepatitis B. The JCVI has recently considered our immunisation strategy. It has not recommended the introduction of universal immunisation for the present, but it wished to see the selective programme reinforced. We are considering ways of achieving this.
The introduction of haemophilus influenzae b vaccine in 1992 has led to the virtual elimination of this disease, which used to be the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in the under 5s. Most cases of bacterial meningitis are now caused by meningococcal disease. There is no vaccine available against the most common strain of meningococcal disease, Group B, whilst Group C vaccine does not protect those at most risk from the disease (that is, very young children), offers only about 80 per cent. protection and does not offer long term protection and, as such, is not suitable for routine use. Current policy is, therefore, to use Group C vaccine only whenever local circumstances indicate, such as in outbreaks of an unusually high incidence of Group C infection.
We are funding work to evaluate new meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines in United Kingdom children. These studies are being conducted by the Public Health Laboratory Service in collaboration with the National Institute for Biological Standards and Controls, the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research and the Institute for Child Health. The studies have shown very encouraging results already for meningococcal Group C vaccines and early indicators for Group B are encouraging. There are reasonable prospects that these vaccines will eventually be able to induce long term immunity although more research is needed before their suitability for widespread use can be considered.
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