University students across the country have undoubtedly spent the last week fielding frenzied messages from parents and friends alarmed about the meningitis outbreak in Kent.
The meningitis outbreak has been labelled as unprecedented, with 20 confirmed cases across Kent and two fatalities within the space of a weekend. Although the bacterial strain of meningitis is rare, the cluster of cases centred around student life in Kent has raised questions about the policy response and the availability of vaccines for meningitis B.
The debate around the outbreak can be widened to a broader analysis of public health policy in the UK. Whilst the meningitis B outbreak appears to be contained, and targeted vaccination and antibiotic programmes in Kent seem to be efficient, the health response to the infection is a warning that we are still not listening. Reactive, rather than preventative, public health policy seems to categorise that response, exposing a continued complacency in how the UK treats public health.
The most striking issue that displays the cracks in preparedness for a crisis is the gaps in vaccination policy.
Whilst NHS England offers the Meningitis B vaccine as part of the routine childhood vaccination programme to babies born after 2015, the student population of the UK is left unprotected against the fatal disease. Students hoping to pay for the vaccine privately have been met with messages across pharmacies and private hospitals warning of a national shortage of the vaccine, with appointments almost impossible to secure. For those lucky enough to secure a private appointment, two doses of the vaccine will set them back a whopping £220. In a landscape of an increasingly privatised NHS, the vaccine’s limitation to those able to pay tells a frightening story about the state of public health policy. The government’s decision not to run a catch-up programme for those most at risk of the disease — students — appears to be one based purely on an economic analysis, not on concerns for public health. What follows is a model of “universal” health care that, in reality, is far from universal. Access to vital and possibly life-saving preventative treatment is distributed on the basis of who can afford it, exacerbating an already unequal model of healthcare that is the antithesis of the founding principles of a National Health Service.
The targeted vaccinations in Kent tell a story of too little, too late. Tens of hospitalisations and two deaths of young people may have been prevented had the government undertaken systemic, preventative vaccination policies to protect those most at risk: teenagers. Instead, precaution was thrown to the wind in the name of saving money and swathes of young people were left vulnerable to a disease with a fatality rate of 10 per cent.
Ultimately, the UK policy landscape has failed to learn from the lessons of COVID-19. Effective firefighting of health crises only scratches the surface of health management. Robust preventative measures must be prioritised to shield the population from crises before they occur.
Photo by Ed Us on Unsplash
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The Health Policy Response to the Meningitis Outbreak Tells a Tale of Too Little, Too Late
University students across the country have undoubtedly spent the last week fielding frenzied messages from parents and friends alarmed about the meningitis outbreak in Kent.
The meningitis outbreak has been labelled as unprecedented, with 20 confirmed cases across Kent and two fatalities within the space of a weekend. Although the bacterial strain of meningitis is rare, the cluster of cases centred around student life in Kent has raised questions about the policy response and the availability of vaccines for meningitis B.
The debate around the outbreak can be widened to a broader analysis of public health policy in the UK. Whilst the meningitis B outbreak appears to be contained, and targeted vaccination and antibiotic programmes in Kent seem to be efficient, the health response to the infection is a warning that we are still not listening. Reactive, rather than preventative, public health policy seems to categorise that response, exposing a continued complacency in how the UK treats public health.
The most striking issue that displays the cracks in preparedness for a crisis is the gaps in vaccination policy.
Whilst NHS England offers the Meningitis B vaccine as part of the routine childhood vaccination programme to babies born after 2015, the student population of the UK is left unprotected against the fatal disease. Students hoping to pay for the vaccine privately have been met with messages across pharmacies and private hospitals warning of a national shortage of the vaccine, with appointments almost impossible to secure. For those lucky enough to secure a private appointment, two doses of the vaccine will set them back a whopping £220. In a landscape of an increasingly privatised NHS, the vaccine’s limitation to those able to pay tells a frightening story about the state of public health policy. The government’s decision not to run a catch-up programme for those most at risk of the disease — students — appears to be one based purely on an economic analysis, not on concerns for public health. What follows is a model of “universal” health care that, in reality, is far from universal. Access to vital and possibly life-saving preventative treatment is distributed on the basis of who can afford it, exacerbating an already unequal model of healthcare that is the antithesis of the founding principles of a National Health Service.
The targeted vaccinations in Kent tell a story of too little, too late. Tens of hospitalisations and two deaths of young people may have been prevented had the government undertaken systemic, preventative vaccination policies to protect those most at risk: teenagers. Instead, precaution was thrown to the wind in the name of saving money and swathes of young people were left vulnerable to a disease with a fatality rate of 10 per cent.
Ultimately, the UK policy landscape has failed to learn from the lessons of COVID-19. Effective firefighting of health crises only scratches the surface of health management. Robust preventative measures must be prioritised to shield the population from crises before they occur.
Photo by Ed Us on Unsplash
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