![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6a91378fbd439c8599d.jpeg\")
\n Photo credit: RIP.ie<\/p>\n
\n Photo credit: RIP.ie<\/p>\n
\n Emily Ellen Culhane died from a strain of meningococcal B on January 5th, 2025.\n <\/p>\n
An inquest into the death of a Laois teenager from bacterial meningitis has heard a request from her father for a catch up vaccine programme to be made available for teens in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Emily Ellen Culhane from The Birches, Lower Boley, Abbeyleix, died from a strain of meningococcal B at Beaumont Hospital on January 5th, 2025.<\/p>\n
Her father Se\u00e1n Culhane made the call during the inquest into her death at \u00a0Dublin District Coroner\u2019s Court.<\/p>\n
However the inquest also heard such a measure had already been ruled out earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The National Immunisation Advisory Committee did not recommend a routine MenB vaccination programme for teenagers.<\/p>\n
It followed a review of an outbreak of meningitis in Kent, England in March, resulting in the introduction of a targeted vaccination programme in the UK.<\/p>\n
It is a rare infection in the republic with less than 100 cases each year.<\/p>\n
A total of 23 deaths have been recorded the past decade.<\/p>\n
Mr. Culhane, said it was clear to his family how two wonderful doctors who treated his daughter were shocked at the particular strain of meningitis with which Emily was infected.<\/p>\n
It was also noted that children born in Ireland after 2016 receive free protection against multiple strains of meningitis in a number of doses between the age of 0 and 2.<\/p>\n
The NIAC \u00a0said they \u00a0would continue to review vaccine effectiveness and possible strategies.<\/p>\n
A verdict of death due to natural causes was returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo credit: RIP.ie Emily Ellen Culhane died from a strain of meningococcal B on January 5th, 2025. An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3279,319,103,61,60,2673,8285,1529,8284,8282,8283,43,8286,700,59],"class_list":["post-607184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-broadcast","tag-broadcasting","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-news","tag-laois","tag-local-news","tag-local-radio","tag-midlands","tag-midlands-103","tag-news","tag-offaly","tag-radio","tag-westmeath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607184","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=607184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}