risk of infections vs vaccination safety

[Bishet]

Hi Everyone

I am mum of two children and getting more and more anxious when it comes to Men B and other infections. On the other hand I am very anxious of safety of vaccinations. I am sorry for asking but can you please tell me if you got infection even though you /your child had been routinely vaccinated prior to that or maybe you did not vaccinate your child at all?

[StrawberryCream]

The vaccinations are life saving! Vaccinations may make your child a little unwell in the days after the vaccination but by not having it you have the risk of your child contracting the strains of meningitis that are covered by the vaccine and which could result in death. That reaction in the days after, is the body developing the immunity resistance to the particular infection that the vaccine is to protect against. The MenC vaccination has been available for many years but the MenB has only been available in the last 1-2 yrs (I think) so the full benefit of that protection in the wider population will not be apparent yet, but should reduce the incidence of the meningitis strains in the vaccine. Mostly you do not catch meningitis from someone else but your own body allows the infection to cross the blood brain barrier and the result is meningitis. The reason why that happens is not fully understood yet. There are only a couple of strains that can be transferred from one person to another if have been in close kissing and cuddling proximity. It is because of the high numbers of children and adults that are dying from meningitis or ending up with life-long damage to brain or body, that the vaccination has been developed to protect more against that happening. As with any immunisation if your child gets a slight temperature or anything in the few days afterwards, you give them calpol. That is minor in contrast to the severe life threatening illness of meningitis. The vaccination has been well tested and would not have been allowed to be part of the immunisation programme if it had significant adverse risks.

We are not medics on here, just people who have had meningitis ourselves, a close relative e.g parent, or know someone close to us who has. Some have survived but their lives have been seriously affected by the meningitis. Distressingly there are some parents on this forum who have lost their precious baby, infant, child or now adult son or daughter to meningitis because immunisation was not available for us, but we are now part of that campaign (directly or indirectly) to get more vaccinations developed to protect against the various strains of meningitis. I don't think any of us on this forum, for whom meningitis has touched their lives, would think that not having the vaccination was an option!

[beech]

My daughter had Meningococcal Meningitis at the age of 16 in 2006. She had all the standard MMR etc vaccinations since a baby, and had what was then the new MenC vaccination a couple of years previously. There was no Men B vaccine available then - and that was what she developed.

Had it been available, I would have had it done; would it have protected her, who knows? But I have no reason to think she would have been harmed by it, and she may not have succumbed to the Neisseria meningitidis that infected her. None of her close friends she had been with that week became ill, nor was there anyone else in the wider community that she may have encountered who had it. So I have no clear source of the infection.

We were lucky and she recovered very well, with a few ongoing problems, but nothing that has interfered with her going on to live a full and happy life; not the one she planned at that time, but that is not an issue.

I’m a believer in vaccination, and have never encountered any negatives as a result of vaccines, either in our family or wider circle of friends or acquaintances over the years.

Your decision is of course yours to make, and maybe you need to look into this further to help you make your decision. I’d still do it all again, but with MenB this time!