Mum urges vaccine use

Sue Smith, 42, said she is extremely disheartened at news that a drive to encourage 18-24-year-olds in Melksham to have the meningitis C vaccine has fallen on deaf ears.

Practice managers in Melksham said up to 2,800 young people in the town had not been given the inoculation.

Since the Wiltshire Times highlighted the poor take-up rate in April an initial surge of interest in the vaccinations was registered but the interest quickly tapered off.

It is estimated up to 2,000 18-24-year-olds still have not been given the vaccination. Mrs Smith, of Rowan Court, who lost her son Kieran to the disease in October, said she would keep on fighting.

She has written to Prime Minister Tony Blair to ask for help in increasing meningitis awareness.

She said: "It is extremely disappointing. I was hoping we would get a bigger take-up rate.

"I can only think that people are not interested. I am hoping parents and friends of people who have not had the vaccine will encourage them to do so.

"I will keep campaigning because if I save one life I feel I have done something. You have to keep your mind occupied.

"People are just not aware of what meningitis can do.

"It doesn't just kill people it can leave you maimed. Mrs Smith and her family have raised more than £12,000 for the Meningitis Trust since Kieran's death. Two weeks ago she visited the Trust's headquarters to see how charity money is spent.

A meningitis scare hit Melksham earlier this year when two people died from killer strains of the bug, including ten-year-old Daniel Higgs.

Sharon White, practice manager at Giffords Surgery, Spa Road, said the initial surge of people asking for the vaccine tapered off at the start of the summer.

She said: "There has been a slow take-up rate. We might see another surge around October. I think more people took up the vaccination than would have before. It is probably still a high proportion of young people who have not had it done."