GSD urges Govt to clarify position on Meningitis B vaccine for uni students
GSD MP Joelle Ladislaus in Parliament earlier this year.
The GSD has called on the Gibraltar Government to confirm whether it will offer the Meningitis B vaccine to all Gibraltar students of university age, following an expanded NHS vaccination campaign in the UK.
The party said the issue had become more pressing ahead of the next university intake, with students due to leave Gibraltar within the next three to four months.
The call follows an outbreak of meningitis B among students in Kent and Canterbury in March 2026. At the time, the GHA offered vaccinations to Gibraltar students at the University of Kent studying at the affected campus who had not previously received the vaccine or had been unable to receive it in the UK before returning home for Easter. The NHS also ran a campaign specifically targeting University of Kent students.
In recent days, the NHS announced that the campaign would be widened significantly, with one million young people in the final year of secondary school and 18 to 25-year-olds heading to university or residential education for the first time in the autumn to be offered the two-dose vaccine.
“In March, the GHA clarified that the parents of people born in 2015 or after will have been offered vaccination against meningitis B for their children at 2 months, 3 months and 13 months,” said Joelle Ladislaus, the Shadow Minister for Health.
“Consequently, university age students will not have been vaccinated against Meningitis B.”
“Seeing as the NHS advice is that international students under 25 entering their first year at university should, where possible, receive their first dose of the Meningitis B in their home country, the Government should now clarify whether it will be following suit and offering the Meningitis B vaccine to all university age students.”
“This issue is especially pressing given that the newest cohort of Gibraltar students will leave for university within the next 3 to 4 months and parents have increasingly and rightly been raising concerns with the opposition, and more generally, about their children’s Meningitis B vaccination status.”
