Nova Scotia switching to costlier meningitis vaccine this fall

Nova Scotia will switch to using a costlier and more comprehensive meningitis vaccine for the next school year, health officials said Wednesday.

The province has been saving about $160,000 per year by using a limited meningitis vaccine instead of a newer one that became available in 2006, says Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief public health officer.

The newer vaccine protects against the strain of bacteria that killed a Lower Sackville boy this week — an infection that Strang said was rare.

With only three cases involving that strain in the last decade in the province, the health system prioritized other upgrades rather than changing the meningitis vaccine, Strang said.

"We look at things from the population level," he said.

"It's hard when you get a single case and say, 'What if we'd done this?' But on the population level there wasn't a strong rationale for doing this."

Nova Scotia health authorities finally decided to make the switch to the costlier vaccine last fall, but it won't roll out until the 2015-2016 school year, for Grade 7 students.

The vaccine is already in use by all the other Atlantic provinces, as well as Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan. Ontario switched in 2009 and New Brunswick has been using the wider vaccine since at least 2010, according to public health documents from those provinces.

Strang expressed condolences Wednesday to the family of the Grade 10 Sackville High School student who died earlier this week.

'Endless demands' on health-care system

A Lower Sackville mother said parents in the community are concerned to learn their children weren't vaccinated against as many meningitis strains as possible.

"They feel absolutely horrible for the family, especially if it was a strain that could have been vaccinated for that wasn't," said Louise Bowden-Leonard. "I mean, his death could have been prevented."

Bowden-Leonard said the parents she knows want their children to get the new vaccine, regardless of the epidemiology in Nova Scotia.

"Kids travel," she said. "Kids travel with hockey, kids go to different provinces, and why aren't they vaccinated against that particular strain?"

The recent death was the first from meningitis in the province in "many years," Strang said. Nova Scotia sees four meningitis cases, at most, annually.

Health authorities have considered upgrading the vaccine every year since 2006, but with "endless demands on the health-care system" they decided to wait, said Strang.

"We're realistic and we have to be strategic and prioritize things," he said.

"Epidemiology would say that this is such a rare occurrence, that there are other needs in the vaccine program we need to put forward first."

For several years, the province has offered the more comprehensive vaccine to a small group of people at high risk for meningitis.

The Capital District Health Authority announced Tuesday that at least 45 people will get the newer vaccine immediately because of their ties to the Lower Sackville case. Any member of the public can also request it, Capital Health said in a news release.