9,000 doses of antibiotics were given across Kent.<\/a>\n <\/p>\nAll confirmed cases so far are young adults.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This age group missed out on vaccines as it only became part of the standard programme in 2015.<\/p>\n
Similarly, in Ireland, the meningitis B vaccine has only been offered for babies and young children since 2016.<\/p>\n
Dr Niamh Lynch, paediatrician at the Bon Secours hospital in Cork, said she now questions why it is not routinely offered.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a cohort of people who are now coming into their teenage and university years, who are wide open and have no protection against meningitis B, although they do have protection against A, C, W and Y [strains],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rationale is it\u2019s expensive, and these outbreaks are rare. But I would counter that by saying now there\u2019s a large outbreak and people are dying.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She called on health authorities to reconsider vaccinating this particular cohort.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“They\u2019re in big lecture halls, all crowded in together, they\u2019re in nightclubs, they\u2019re sharing vapes, they\u2019re close together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Lynch is also an author who offers advice to parents on her Instagram account.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Answering questions on the meningitis outbreak in a video, she advised: “Ideally nobody should be vaping. It’s the reality, and people do, so just don’t share them.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The HSE said on Friday that this vaccine programme is currently not recommended for teenagers by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee.<\/p>\n
Dr Scott Walkin, clinical lead in infection control for the Irish College of GPs, said that up to now, there are no Irish cases linked to the Kent outbreak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no advice at the moment for a booster campaign, and there is no travel advisory advising against travel to any part of the UK,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The vaccine campaign in Kent is \u201cmitigation\u201d against spread as well as offering protection to students, he said.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the case numbers are high, however, saying: \u201cThat is an unusually large number for meningitis B.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It can be spread through close contact, including kissing, sharing\u202fdrinks, or\u202fsharing vapes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is spread through respiratory droplets. The concern is that it is being spread via saliva on the end of the vapes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be similar to sharing a glass or sharing a toothbrush.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ireland has seen 12 cases of meningococcal disease this year, including nine of meningitis B. There have not been any deaths. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A catch-up meningitis B vaccine campaign is not currently planned for Ireland despite concerns it could be needed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11246,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-357111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-childrens-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}