One in five children, 11 to 13, not fully protected against deadly meningitis

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One in five children aged 11 to 13 are not fully protected against the deadliest form of meningitis despite a national immunisation programme.

Researchers warned that they may require a booster jab for Type C meningitis because studies have shown that the vaccine starts to wear off after a number of years as antibody levels drop.

Their paper, published online by the British Medical Journal, follows figures suggesting the brain disease has almost been eliminated.

There were no deaths last year from the C strain of meningococcus among the under-19 population - for the first time since records began in the late 19th century.

University of Oxford researchers discovered that a fifth of six to eight-year-olds vaccinated as part of the 1999-2000 immunisation campaign were not sufficiently protected as they entered adolescence.

Dr Matthew Snape and colleagues found older children maintained their immunity longer.

Dr Snape said the findings were also likely to apply to children who were younger than six when they were immunised in 1999-2000.