A federal panel, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has stopped short of recommending that all adolescents and young adults in the U.S. be vaccinated against a serious strain of meningitis advising instead that doctors decide whether or not to give the vaccine.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 14 to 1 on Wednesday to recommend the more limited use of new vaccines against Serogroup B, one of several strains of meningococcal disease, in individuals between 16 and 23 years old.
The U.S. has about 50 to 60 cases of meningitis B affecting adults and young adults. Fatality of the diseases is between five and 10. Experts said that between 1 million and 3 million people need to be vaccinated in order to prevent one death.
The panel recommended that it will depend on the doctor's and parents' decision if teens can get the vaccines, which could also appear on the list of shots that are relied on by parents and doctors albeit it did not approve wide use of the vaccine.
Under the recommendation, two newly approved meningitis vaccines, Pfizer's Trumenba and GlaxoSmithKline's Bexsero, will be offered under "permissive" guidelines, which means the shots can be covered by the federal Vaccines for Children program and private insurance.
The new Meningitis B vaccines are relatively expensive and the illness is rare and this combination appeared to have prompted the panel to recommend a more cautious approach.
Some of the panel's members expressed their uncertainties on how the long the vaccine would last, whether or not a booster is required, and how this will prevent the disease from spreading.
"As we go into the future with more vaccines against rarer and rare diseases, we're not going to be able to recommend every vaccine for every person every time," said panel member Douglas Campos-Outcalt.
The recommendation disappointed the parents of children who died because of the rare but serious infection that the CDC says is responsible for one of three cases of meningococcal disease. Still, some are optimistic about the panel's recommendation.
"Permission recommendation is definitely better than no recommendation," said National Meningitis Association president Lynn Bozof. "It means groups like NMA will need to step up and educate parents and adolescents more, because they may go to their health care provider and he or she may not necessarily bring up the vaccine."
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