TODAY the Gazette joins the fight to make the Men B vaccine available to all children on the NHS.

Thousands of people signed a petition to make the Bexsero vaccine available to all children but they were ignored by the government in April this year.

So Stroud-based charity Meningitis Now launched their Give Children a Voice campaign to ensure those most at risk were heard.

The Gazette now joins that campaign, and, along with charity leaders and families devastated by of meningitis, we will continue to provide a voice to those battling to save people’s lives. 

A total of 823,000 people signed the biggest ever parliamentary petition calling for use of the Men B vaccine to be extended to all children under 11.

Bexsero remains free to babies under one, but is otherwise £95 per dose (two or three doses are required) from high street chemists and private clinics.

Karen and Steve Pegler’s son Chris, a former student of Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School, died within 24 hours of contracting meningitis in November 2010. 

Speaking to the Gazette about the government’s decision, Karen said: “Chris had meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia and if he’d had the vaccine he could still be here now.”

Steve added: “If we hadn’t have had it affect us I don’t think we would have known.”

The Give Children a Voice campaign takes the form of a letter to Jeremy Hunt, with Meningitis Now asking people across the UK to “add their voice”, as well as the voice of their children. 

Steve Dayman, from Alveston, founded Meningitis Now after losing his 14-month old son Spencer to meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia in 1982. He and the charity’s chief executive Liz Brown spoke to the Gazette of the importance of the campaign. 

“Of all infectious diseases, meningitis is still the biggest killer of children and young adults in this country,” said Mr Dayman. 

“When it strikes it devastates families and communities because it’s so quick. And you never know where it’s going to strike. I drive around the country and see groups of mums chatting outside primary schools and their children coming out to meet them and I think, somewhere in this country this week will be a case of meningitis. 

“It could be those mums, having a gossip and a laugh, that it affects. But somewhere in the country some lives are going to be changed forever.” 

Ms Brown added: “When the petition first started we were asking for all children under the age of 11 to be vaccinated and it was fantastic when the announcement was made to provide the vaccine to babies under the age of one. But so many children remain at risk, and so we are focusing this campaign on the most at risk group: children under five.

Go here to sign the letter to Mr Hunt.