THE Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has backed the proposal that a vaccination against Streptococcus pneumoniae — a common cause of meningitis, pneumonia, septicaemia and deafness — should be offered routinely to babies and young children as well as to the elderly.

But it is said that the Government is hesitating about accepting this move, on the grounds of cost and parents’ unjustified fear of all vaccinations because of the MMR dispute.

The 2,000 children who contract pneumococcal meningitis or septicaemia have a thoroughly unpleasant and potentially dangerous condition. For this reason alone I would have no hesitation in recommending that my grandchildren have the latest injection.

The incidence of infection with this bacteria is rising. Even if the child — usually one under 5 — or someone who is immuno-compromised doesn’t develop meningitis and septicaemia, many others will still suffer a bacteraemia (bacteria in the blood) and sustain lasting damage.

For several years many doctors have recommended that every child should have a vaccine against Streptococcus pneumoniae, but it has been given only to selected cases of children under 5. Many of the children who recover from meningococcal meningitis subsequently suffer other problems.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is the third most common cause of bacterial meningitis. It is responsible for one case in ten of the potentially lethal forms of bacterial meningitis that in children are associated with septicaemia. Pneumococcal meningitis has a death rate of about one in four, appreciably higher than that of Hib meningitis, against which children are already protected.

As well as causing one in ten cases of meningitis in infants and young children, Streptococcus pneumoniae is responsible for two thirds of the cases of pneumonia in children under five. The other vulnerable age group is the elderly, and for many years all older people have been recommended to have vaccination against Streptococcus pneumoniae.

One in six of those who recover from meningitis is left mentally retarded; one in seven has epilepsy; and one in four becomes deaf (half of these become profoundly deaf). It would be difficult to explain to a parent whose child was left deaf and mentally retarded, or had died, that stopping this was considered too expensive by those governing one of the richest countries in the world.

There are three classes of bacteria responsible for most cases of meningitis. Haemophilus influenzae causes Hib meningitis, but thanks to vaccination this infection has become so rare as to be virtually eradicated. The vaccine against Hib was introduced in 1992. Meningococcus groups B and C are responsible for most of the serious cases of bacterial meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia. There is now a vaccination against meningitis C, but no immunisation available against meningitis B. The third common cause of bacterial meningitis is Streptococcus pneunomiae, the organism at present under discussion.

The concept that young babies are confronted by too many antigens as the result of their immunisation programme is nonsense. All of us, whether 70, 7 or 7 months old, face a huge range of potentially infective agents every day. One of the possible problems of today’s aseptic, hyperclean households is that the present generation of young children does not come across a sufficient onslaught of antigens to stimulate their immune system.

Parents and doctors, however, need to choose their babies’ adversaries and any virus or bacteria that may cause meningitis is certainly not to be tackled if it can be avoided.