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Our doctors ‘so close’ to a cure for meningitis

20/ 3/2008

A DOCTOR leading pioneering work to combat meningitis says his team is close to producing a cure.

Dr Ray Borrow – who lives in Withington – is heading a 30-strong team carrying out tests to produce a vaccine that could signal the end for the killer disease.

He hopes that all children will be vaccinated against the most common and deadly form of meningitis within two years.

Around 180 people are killed by the B strain of the disease every year in the UK, with children under five most at risk.

But tests at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) are showing that children treated with a new vaccine created by the team are producing more of the antibodies that fight meningitis.

Dr Borrow, 45, and his team at the North West Health Protection Agency, based at the MRI, have already produced a vaccine to combat strain C of the meningococcal meningitis infection.

Now Dr Borrow has revealed that they have also enjoyed a breakthrough in the cultivation of a vaccine against the more common B strain of the meningococcal disease.

Strain B is the most common and deadly strain of the disease, mostly affecting children under the age of five.

It kills one in every ten of the youngsters infected by it each year. Strain B accounts for around 90 per cent of the 1,800 cases of meningitis cases in Britain every year.

Around 15 per cent of those who survive the disease are left with severe disabilities.

Dr Borrow lives on Burlington Road with his partner Lisa Barber and two young children, who are both pupils at St Paul’s Primary. He said: "We’re hoping that the vaccine will be ready in the next couple of years, so that it can be introduced into the childhood immunisation programme to protect against strain B.

"We have been trying to produce a vaccine against the group B strain of the disease for some time now and are delighted with the first signs of success."

He added: "People have been working on producing a vaccine for this strain of the disease for the last couple of decades, so everybody is delighted that things have begun to progress and we are that much closer to producing a vaccine.

"We hope that this will relieve the stress and pressure for many parents as meningitis is always a major worry for people who have children.

"For some, the threat of meningitis really preys on their minds, so this will help to alleviate their concerns."

Scientists at the clinical sciences section of the MRI have been trialling the vaccines in children and then taking blood samples from those who have been injected.

It is from these samples that researchers have been able to work out that the antibodies that have developed in their blood as a result of the vaccine are capable of killing the meningococcal B disease.

The laboratories, have already been recognised as a national meningitis reference centre after researchers tested the vaccine for type C meningitis there.

Early signs of the meningitis infection include fever, nausea, headache, vomiting and muscle pain with cold hands and feet.

A rash can also develop all over the body as part of the disease.