Progress to defeat meningitis is currently behind other vaccine-preventable diseases. That’s why, in our 2025 – 2030 strategy, one of our three priorities is to ensure we increase understanding of the burden and impact of meningitis.
Accurate data and new insights on meningitis enable evidence-driven advocacy. Together, we can transform health policy to improve meningitis prevention and care worldwide.
What is the challenge we want to address?
Effective policies to support equitable use and access to meningitis vaccines and improved quality of life for those affected by meningitis are not in place. This is a significant contributing factor to progress against meningitis being behind other vaccine-preventable infectious diseases.
Meningitis disease data estimates understate the true burden and life-long impact of meningitis. The global data for meningitis does not include some of the leading causes of meningitis, meaning it doesn’t tell the full story of all the causes of this devastating disease.
Civil society advocates do not have access to the data they need for evidence-led advocacy. Combining powerful personal testimony with national data on meningitis could help change health policy. But only if the data is publicly available, easily accessible and understood.
In the UK, there are gaps in the routine protection available to the highest at-risk groups. Teenagers and young adults still cannot access a MenB vaccine in the UK’s routine immunisation schedule. For pregnant women and young babies, there is no vaccine for Group B Strep, the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in babies under three months old in high-income countries.
What is our ambition?
Between 2025 and 2030, we have committed to:
- Launch new insights and policy papers on the equitable use of, and access to, meningitis vaccines and on improved quality of life for all those affected by the consequences of meningitis.
- Estimate the true burden of meningitis from all causes and include this in the Meningitis Progress Tracker, for the first time.
- Support civil society to use the data in the Meningitis Progress Tracker, so advocacy is evidence-led and enables better policy development.
- Improve protection and care in the UK by advocating for the introduction of a MenB protective vaccine for teenagers and the development of a national plan on meningitis.
What do we want to achieve?
- An accurate estimation of the full, global burden of meningitis to support better health policy.
- Insights and policy reports and recommendations that engage, inform and enable change.
- Fuelling evidence-led advocacy by civil society advocates across the world through personal testimony and easily accessible, verified data.
- Filling the protection gaps in policies for people at risk of meningitis in the UK.