BLACKWOOD — Emma Alderman is calling for the UK to extend the MenB vaccine to teenagers after her daughter contracted meningococcal B meningitis despite being fully vaccinated. The four-year-old spent two weeks on a high dependency ward fighting for her life after becoming critically ill in December 2022.

Noa-Rose Alderman, from Blackwood in Caerphilly county, had received all three recommended doses of the MenB vaccine. The NHS offers the vaccine to babies at eight weeks, 12 weeks, and one year old.

After visiting a park, Noa-Rose complained of leg pain that her mother initially attributed to growing pains, Alderman said. A rash started spreading over Noa-Rose's body and her temperature rose to 40°C, she said.

Noa-Rose started vomiting and became unresponsive in the middle of the night, her parents said. Doctors at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil initially diagnosed her with scarlet fever or Strep A and sent her home, her parents said.

After her condition worsened, a lumbar puncture confirmed she had meningococcal B meningitis, her parents said. "She was so unwell that doctors were trying to stabilise her in front of us," Alderman said. She is an ambassador for Meningitis Now.

"They realised then that obviously she was really, really ill and the mood just changed, and you could see she was fighting for her life, and there was nothing we could do about it," said Scott Alderman, Noa-Rose's father. "It was just like 'what is happening here?' and without a doubt it was the worst experience in my life."

Noa-Rose, now seven, is among the MenB survivors left with epilepsy, fatigue, and developmental delay. "I can say with confidence that if Noa-Rose didn't have the vaccines we wouldn't have her with us now and we would have lost her," Alderman said.

Teenagers are more likely than other age groups to carry the meningococcal bacteria in their throats, causing a second peak of the disease in that group. MenB accounted for 82.6% of all meningococcal cases in the UK over the past year, according to UK government figures.

The charity Meningitis Now has a No Plan B for MenB campaign aiming to introduce an adolescent booster by 2030 and make the vaccine more affordable on the high street, a spokesperson from Meningitis Now said. "Isn't it better to be vaccinated and have that 75% chance than none at all?" said Esme Lee, a support worker at Meningitis Now.

"This is about the cost of a young person's life, and their family's life. How do you put a price on that?" Lee said.

Cases of MenB have dropped by 75% in vaccinated infants since 2015, according to charity Meningitis Now. The MenB vaccine was added to the UK NHS childhood immunisation programme for babies born on or after 1 July 2015.