‘Significant’ changes to childhood vaccination schedule announced

The government has confirmed a raft of ‘significant’ changes to the childhood vaccination schedule, including a new routine appointment at 18 months.

Recommended shifts in a number of vaccination timings, the first of which will come into force in July, have been triggered by the discontinuation of the Mentorix Hib/Men C vaccine that until now has been offered in children turning a year old.

With no other Hib/Men C vaccine on the market, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has agreed that protection against meningitis C is no longer needed in this age group due to ‘excellent population control provided by vaccination of adolescents’.

Instead, a new fourth dose of the 6-in-1 vaccine that contains Hib alongside diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and hepatitis B will be introduced at 18 months from January 2026.

The second MMR dose will also be moved from three years to this new 18-month appointment to help improve uptake and provide earlier protection, the letter from the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England sets out.

JCVI first recommended the changes to the immunisation schedule in 2022 while noting that stocks of Mentorix would run out this year. Several options were considered.

An additional appointment at 18 months was approved because it also provides ‘the opportunity to strengthen the protection’ against polio, diphtheria and pertussis.

And the committee noted that studies in London and elsewhere had shown that where the second dose of MMR had been brought forward in response to outbreaks, it led to significantly higher coverage once children reached the age of five.

Once the changes are in place, the one-year appointment will still offer vaccination for the first MMR dose and meningitis B and pneumococcal booster jabs.

From July this year there are also changes to the vaccine schedule given at two, three and four months, after recommendations from the JCVI.

The second meningitis B vaccine dose will now be given at 12 weeks instead of 16 weeks after a recent clinical study showed the benefits of earlier protection against the infection.

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To avoid an increase in injections given at the 12-week appointment, the first dose of pneumococcal vaccine (PCV13) will be moved to 16 weeks, the guidance sent to all those involved in commissioning and delivering vaccines states.

‘The short delay in PCV13 is unlikely to be significant due to excellent overall control of the serotypes covered by PCV13,’ the JCVI has advised.

Any children who were eligible for the selective neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination programme who would have been vaccinated at one year will no longer need to be because of the new 18-month jab.

The hepatitis B surface antigen blood spot test will still be needed in those who are eligible because of potential transmission in pregnancy but can be done at any time between one year and 18 months.

Most of the changes impact children born on or after 1July 2024, a table outlining the changes explains.