AFTER the success of an online petition for meningitis B vaccinations for children up to the age of 11, the House of Commons Petitions Committee has confirmed it is to hold two evidence sessions on the subject.

Young Liphook mum Jane Gleeson, who was instrumental in launching the petition, was delighted with the result.

“We are overwhelmed by the support from the public and the 821,536 signatures the petition has received so far,” she said. “I am currently contacting schools and doctors surgeries to hand out symptoms cards to keep the awareness going.”

Jane was in the same online birth group as Fay Burdett’s parents, Jenny and Neil, who had to deal with losing their two-year old daughter to meningitis in February.

Meningitis Now chief executive Sue Davie said: “We are really pleased the Petitions Committee has decided to push forward with this quickly and gather evidence prior to the parliamentary debate being held. By announcing this, we can now put an end to the speculation that the debate isn’t going to happen and that the argument to extend the vaccine use has already been lost. It hasn’t and this fight continues.

“I’d like to assure our supporters and everyone who has signed the petition we will take this opportunity to make the strongest case we can for extending the vaccine’s use.”

Last week, the Government rejected calls for all children up to the age of 11 to be given the meningitis B vaccine.

The Department of Health posted a response on the petition website, stating it would not be cost-effective to give the vaccine to children outside the highest-risk groups – infants who are offered it at two and four months, followed by a booster at 12 months.

Following the advice of its scientific advisers at the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation (JCVI), the DoH said: “Offering the vaccine outside of JCVI’s advice would not be cost-effective, and would not therefore represent a good use of NHS resources which should be used to benefit the health and care of the most people possible.”