Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation will next consider the potential merits of offering the Meningitis B vaccine to teenagers on the NHS.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) meningococcal sub-committee have met several times over 2024 and 2025 to discuss the meningococcal vaccination programme. In June 2025, the sub-committee noted that when available, they would like to review a model evaluating the impact of the Meningitis B (MenB) vaccination when given in a teenage programme in a two-dose schedule, including impact on meningococcal disease and gonorrhoea.

In 2013, the JCVI advised that the cost-effectiveness of an adolescent MenB vaccination programme would be dependent on the impact of the vaccine on protection against meningococcal carriage, which was uncertain at the time. Since this advice was published, the JCVI has continued to review the MenB vaccination programme. Recent evidence, discussed by the JCVI meningococcal sub-committee in March 2025, indicated that MenB vaccination in adolescents has little to no effect on meningococcal carriage.