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As a parent, young adult, or advocate, it’s important to understand the challenges of comprehensive, equitable meningococcal meningitis prevention in the United States.
What challenges are we working to overcome?
Not all healthcare providers routinely discuss the MenB vaccine with their eligible patients.
Close to 50% of healthcare providers were not aware of the correct ACIP recommendation for the MenB vaccine.
Few colleges and no schools currently require the MenB vaccine.
Source
What’s the Impact?
Meningitis B is responsible for all US college outbreaks of meningococcal meningitis since 2011.
Meningitis B accounts
for 70% of all meningococcal meningitis cases among those 16-23.
More than 80% of parents have not heard of the MenB vaccine.
Only 3 out of 10 17-year-olds have received at least one dose of the MenB vaccine.
Hot Topic: Pentavalent Meningococcal Vaccine
There are currently two pentavalent meningococcal vaccines pending final FDA approval (Pfizer and GSK). The pentavalent vaccine targets all 5 types of meningococcal bacteria - ABCWY - primarily responsible for meningococcal meningitis. Currently, patients require two different types of meningitis vaccines to help prevent meningococcal meningitis - MenACWY and MenB. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is expected to provider their recommendations on the Pfizer pentavalent vaccine on October 2023 and on GSK’s candidate in 2024.
According to an online survey of 400 healthcare providers conducted by Survey Healthcare Global in February 2023 with input from the Meningitis B Action Project and financial support from Pfizer:
of physicians believe that a pentavalent vaccine option will help to increase immunization rates for MenB.
of physicians are likely to encourage parents to consider vaccinating their children with the pentavalent vaccine.
of physicians would prefer to stock and administer a pentavalent vaccine as opposed to administering MenB and MenACWY vaccines separately.
of physicians believe that patients will prefer the pentavalent vaccine, compared to shots that individually cover four (MenACWY) and one serogroup (MenB).
When asked to what extent the below factors will influence their preference for a pentavalent meningococcal vaccine option, physicians said:
Simplifying the vaccine schedule
for staff (95%)
Simplifying communication with patients and their families (91%)
Potential for reducing the number of doses needed to complete the recommended series for MenB and MenACWY (91%)
Increasing the likelihood that patients will be covered for all five serogroups (91%)
Ease of ordering and stocking (87%)
Reducing the likelihood of administration errors (81%)
Additional Articles
Last updated August 2023