Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has any newly available (a) evidence or (b) modelling related to carriage studies and the potential impact of routinely offering Meningitis B vaccinations for people aged 13-25 on their health.

The Department makes decisions on vaccination programmes following careful consideration of independent expert advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The JCVI does not currently recommend a routine MenB booster vaccination for adolescents and young adults. The JCVI routinely reviews new evidence as it emerges and my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, announced on 17 March that the JCVI has been asked to reexamine eligibility for meningitis vaccines. However, decisions on routine vaccination programmes are taken on the basis of independent scientific advice from the JCVI. As ever, we will carefully consider their advice.

In the meantime, a targeted vaccination programme has been extended to everyone who has been offered preventative antibiotic treatment as part of this outbreak.