Doctors have hailed the development of the first vaccine against the commonest strain of meningitis as a major breakthrough in the fight to reduce the deaths and disability the disease causes.
The European Medicines Agency issued a "positive opinion" about the new vaccine, Bexsero, which protects against meningococcal group B disease, known as MenB.
Doctors and meningitis campaigners hope the decision will ultimately lead to children in the UK being immunised with the new vaccine, possibly as soon as late next year. "The licensure of a group B meningococcal vaccine is a big step forwards towards the hope of controlling this devastating disease," said Professor Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group at Oxford University, which helped develop the vaccine.
There are about 1,870 cases a year in the UK of meningococcal B meningitis and septicaemia linked to MenB, mainly in young children. It kills one in 10 of those who get it and up to one in three survivors suffer serious side-effects such as blindness, deafness, brain damage and loss of a limb.
"This vaccine could save many lives every year, but it could also save the long-term suffering that many survivors face after the disease," said Sue Davie, chief executive of the Meningitis Trust charity. Until now it had proved difficult to create a vaccine to protect against this strain of meningitis, she added.
The European commission will have to license the vaccine, made by Novartis, before any European government can introduce it. The government's advisory joint committee on vaccination and immunisation would have to approve it for use in the UK.
"Since the first meningitis vaccine was introduced in 1992 many strains of meningitis including Hib, ManC and pneumococcal have been dramatically reduced. Once the MenB vaccine is licensed it is essential that government give it full consideration as soon as possible," said Chris Head of the Meningitis Research Foundation. "We must not allow children to die from this disease if it can be prevented."