The NIHR Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility – Southampton General Hospital is seeking healthy volunteers aged from 10 to 18 years to take part in a Clinical Trial of a new Meningococcal Group B vaccine.
Type B Meningococcus is the major cause of meningococcal meningitis (inflammation of the brain) and septicaemia (blood poisoning) in the UK. These severe diseases are thankfully rare, but are most common in young children and young adults compared to other age groups.
An effective vaccine for type C meningococcus was introduced in to the routine immunisation schedule more than a decade ago. A vaccine against meningococcus B has recently been approved for use in the European Union, but is not yet widely available.
A new, slightly different vaccine is being developed (called bivalent rLP2086) that we hope will help prevent illness caused by meningococcus type B (MenB). NIHR Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility is involved in conducting this very large study that will include more than 3,600 children and young adults worldwide.
If you take part in the study, you would be asked to attend a clinic on five occasions – three vaccination visits and two more visits to have a blood sample taken.
Participants allocated to the “MenB” group would receive three doses of the study vaccine (rLP2086) over a six month period. Those allocated to the “control” group would receive two doses of an approved vaccine against Hepatitis A virus and one dose of saline (a placebo or “dummy” solution), also over a six month period.
If you are interested in taking part and would like more information then please contact the research team:
Mr Danny Pratt – Recruitment Coordinator, email: [email protected] or call 023 8079 4989.