{"id":737210,"date":"2026-08-14T00:27:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T00:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737210\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T00:27:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T00:27:03","slug":"meningitis-b-vaccine-push-as-shropshire-uptake-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737210\/","title":{"rendered":"Meningitis B vaccine push as Shropshire uptake &#8216;low&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A health boss has urged young people to get vaccinated against meningitis B vaccine, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shropshiretelfordandwrekin.nhs.uk\/news\/menb-disease-get-protected-before-the-start-of-uni\/\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">uptake in Shropshire is low, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The jab is being offered to 17 and 18-year-olds in sixth form and students under the age of 25 who are heading to a residential college or university this autumn for the first time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It comes after concerns over the UK&#8217;s largest and fastest growing outbreak that happened in Kent earlier this year. The infection can cause serious, life-threatening problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We think there&#8217;s just over 700 people who taken up the offer in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, but it&#8217;s early days,&#8221; said Vanessa Whatley, chief nursing officer for NHS Shropshire Telford and Wrekin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The call to encourage young people to get the vaccine is ahead of most freshers&#8217; weeks starting in September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;re really keen to encourage people to take this offer up,&#8221; said Whatley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It will help prevent outbreaks going forward&#8230; when you do get it, it&#8217;s very nasty.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She also urged people to encourage those in their families to get the jab.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Even if it&#8217;s not you going to university or to residential college, if you know somebody that&#8217;s under 25 that is going to one of those institutions&#8230; just ask them if they&#8217;ve been vaccinated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s really easy, you can just pop into your pharmacy.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A health boss has urged young people to get vaccinated against meningitis B vaccine, as uptake in Shropshire&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-737210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}