How to check if you have the meningitis vaccine already as outbreak kills two
An outbreak of Meningitis in Kent has left two dead, at time of writing there have been 20 confirmed cases and among those some of the people have been identified as coming down with Meningitis B.
Efforts to contain the disease are underway with thousands of doses of antibiotics provided to people in the area and plans to vaccinate the roughly 5,000 students living on the University of Kent campus are underway.
However, some students have already left the campus and travelled home to other parts of the country, while other students who live off campus told Press Association they were 'not really sure' whether they were going to get the vaccine as well.
GPs across the country have been told they can prescribe antibiotics to anyone who visited Club Chemistry in Canterbury on 5, 6 or 7 March, as well as University of Kent students.
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While the vaccine rollout is underway among students in the area there is some confusion over who has already been vaccinated and how to work out if you've had the jab.
How to check if you have the Meningitis B vaccine
The Meningitis B vaccine is typically administered to children as part of a routine series of jabs, with the first coming at eight weeks, a second shot at 12 weeks and a booster jab at age one.
As such, if you did get your Meningitis vaccines then you probably don't remember it happening so you'd want to check if it's already been administered.
You could contact your GP and ask them, though they're busy people and this is something you can look into yourself.
If you've got the NHS app you can check your own GP health record on it and look at your immunisations to see if a Meningitis B vaccination is part of your medical records.
There's a very good chance it won't be, as the vaccine for this particular strain of the disease is a relatively recent addition to the NHS.
It's certainly worth checking because getting the vaccine is likely going to cost you a bit of money, so it's best to double check.
Why many Brits aren't vaccinated against Meningitis B
The NHS vaccination for young children to protect them against Meningitis B was only rolled out in 2015, so anyone older than 11 is unlikely to have received the jabs.
At the time this happened there was also not a catch-up scheme to offer the jabs to those older than the criteria, so only the newest generation has that protection the vaccine provides.
If you were born before 2015 then there's a very good chance you haven't had the jab.
Dr Donald Grant, GP and Senior Clinical Advisor at The Independent Pharmacy, told LADbible 'many older children, teenagers and adults may not have been eligible at the time and could be unaware that they are unprotected'.
You might remember getting Meningitis jabs when you were a child, but those were for other strains of the disease as before 2015 the jabs offered on the NHS were for the A, C, W and Y strains.
How to get a Meningitis B vaccine
If you're not a student living at the University of Kent or a child aged 11 or younger then it'll likely be up to you to get the jab yourself.
After checking to make sure you haven't already had it the jabs can be obtained privately through pharmacies, meaning you'll have to buy them.
Prices for a dose of the Meningitis B vaccine vary between £100 and £120, but you'll need two doses of it so you can expect to spend north of £200 to get it.
However, at the moment a number of the UK's popular pharmacies have warned that demand is high and supply is low due to the sudden spike in interest, meaning you may not be able to get one at the moment.
The likes of Boots and Superdrug will currently tell you they're out of stock and the best you can do is be notified when they'll have some more again.
The difference between the Meningitis vaccines
There are several vaccines for Meningitis in the UK, but taking the wrong one will do you no good in your attempt to protect yourself from the B strain.
There are six kinds of meningococcal bacteria, A, B, C, W, X, and Y, and if you have a strain you're not vaccinated against it won't help you.
The more widespread vaccine treats four kinds of Meningitis and is known as MenACWY, which is offered when children are around the age of 14 while anyone who missed that is still eligible to get it up until the age of 25.
However, the MenB vaccine is a different thing as it targets different strains of bacteria.
Joe Harker