Hansard

This is a welcome and timely debate as it comes just a month before this year’s world immunisation week and a few days after the recommendation by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation that the meningitis B vaccine be introduced into the childhood immunisation programme.

I think we sometimes forget just how valuable immunisation has been throughout the world in eradicating or significantly reducing the incidence of what used to be commonplace diseases that led to people right across the globe developing complications and dying. We no longer fear smallpox and we can travel safely in places in which tropical diseases are rife, thanks to the many vaccines that have been developed over the years to give protection from those diseases.

I well remember a student visit that I made to Yugoslavia in the 1960s as part of a public health tour, when I saw several cases of tetanus in which the virus had entered the body through roughened skin on heels that had been in contact with earth tracks. At the time, I had a few painful hacks on my own heels and I was very thankful for the tetanus vaccination that I had had prior to setting out on my travels, because tetanus is not a pleasant disease.

I also recall that I had to have a typhoid vaccination before entering Yugoslavia, to ensure that I was not a carrier, because we had just had a significant outbreak of the disease in Aberdeen as the result of a contaminated batch of corned beef.

Closer to home, I still vividly recall the very painful photophobia I experienced while suffering from measles as a child. My husband had an iron lung on standby for him when he contracted polio during the UK outbreak shortly after the end of the second world war. Fortunately, he experienced no lasting effects of the disease, nor did I suffer the serious complications of measles. However, we were lucky. It concerns me that there have been several cases of measles in Scotland recently, as well as outbreaks of whooping cough, which indicate the continuing need to maintain high levels of immunisation in childhood that, unfortunately, were adversely affected by the MMR scare a few years ago.

To be able to protect the population from the damage caused by common infections such as rubella and the long-term effects of HPV, leading to cervical cancer and increasingly recognised as a causative factor in other malignancies such as oropharyngeal and other cancers, is an enormous benefit resulting from many years of valuable research. Each year we hear of further vaccines being developed that could, in due course, eliminate many of the scourges of modern-day society.

The introduction of the meningitis B vaccine into the childhood immunisation programme, which the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommends, is a case in point, because meningitis B is now the commonest form of meningitis in the UK and accounts for 90 per cent of meningococcal infections. That follows the success of the meningitis C vaccination campaign in all but eliminating that form of the disease, with only two cases of seragroup C reported in Scotland since 2007.

Meningitis B is a devastating illness; babies under a year old are particularly at risk. It can kill within 24 hours of initial symptoms and, indeed, does kill 10 per cent of those infected, while a third of survivors suffer lifelong consequences. The recommendation to include the meningitis B vaccine in the immunisation programme for babies is very much to be welcomed, as is the Scottish Government’s stated intention to work with health departments across the UK to ensure its speedy inclusion in the immunisation programme.

We all know the benefits of the influenza vaccine in keeping vulnerable people safe from influenza’s complications, such as pneumonia and respiratory failure. Many elderly and immunosuppressed people are alive today as a result of the annual vaccination programme in Scotland, while many have also benefited from the pneumococcal vaccine, one application of which gives lifelong protection from the pneumonia caused by the organism.

The extension of the flu vaccination to children is an important development, as is the vaccination against rotavirus. I also very much welcome the herpes zoster vaccine that Labour’s amendment refers to, as I have seen the painful and debilitating effect of the herpes zoster virus, particularly in susceptible elderly people. Shingles was the trigger that led to my mother’s death in her 80s. She lived for a year after developing the illness, but it led to her steady decline, both physically and mentally, and she never regained the quality of life that she had had before she was hit by the virus.

There are many other vaccines that we could discuss, both those available today and those in the pipeline, but time does not allow for that in a short debate. Suffice it to say that I whole-heartedly support the motion, which articulates the clear benefits and crucial importance of immunisation programmes to our public health, and I am encouraged that the annual uptake of childhood vaccination is as high as 97 per cent.

We cannot be complacent, however, because it is extremely important that the high level of uptake is maintained to protect the community. It follows that we must support health boards, and primary care staff in particular, to maintain their commitment to immunisation, despite the pressures that that will put on their workforce, as Richard Simpson’s amendment highlights. We will undoubtedly see more and more life-saving vaccines coming on stream as a result of cutting-edge research being carried out in the UK and elsewhere.

I move amendment S4M-09446.2, to insert at end:

“; welcomes the announcement by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation that the meningitis B vaccine is to be introduced into the routine childhood immunisation programme at two, four and 12 months of age, and looks forward to the Scottish Government implementing this programme as soon as possible”.