Protecting children from meningitis

Meningitis can be serious and life-threatening with babies and children at particular risk. Children who survive it may face long-term problems, such as vision, hearing and learning difficulties.

In the last 30 years Action Medical Research has invested more than £1 million in meningitis research, carried out by some of the most established experts in the field. As a result, the charity has made a significant contribution to the prevention and management of meningitis in the UK.

Part of this contribution was the founding of the Action Medical Research Chair in Paediatrics at the University of Oxford, held for 25 years by Professor Richard Moxon (now held by Professor Georg Hollander).

Professor Moxon’s team helped establish a vaccine for meningitis caused by Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), formerly the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children.

Before the introduction of the vaccine in 1992, England and Wales saw approximately 800 cases of Hib infection a year, with around 30 deaths and about 80 children left with permanent brain damage or deafness. The Hib vaccine is now a routine immunisation in the UK and has cut the number of cases of Hib infection in children under five by 98 per cent.

Professor Moxon’s team also produced follow-on research that helped indicate the need for a booster dose, now also routine.

Action Medical Research continues to support research into meningitis. Two Research Training Fellowship grants have been awarded to researchers with the most recent investigating a new vaccine for another type of meningitis infection and in 2009, a new project got under way looking at how meningitis can be made worse by prior infection with a type of virus.