MANY teenagers started today with an injection as part of a mass vaccination programme against meningitis.

Health workers started giving young people aged 15, 16 and 17 their protective jabs at Hove Park Upper School, in Nevill Road, this morning to vaccinate them against meningitis C.

School doctors and nurses will be going into secondary schools and further education colleges in Brighton, Hove and Lewes until the second week in December to immunise up to 12,000 young people considered among those most at risk.

The newly-developed vaccine is being made available for the first time as part of a

Government immunisation programme against meningitis C, which accounts for about 40 per cent of all cases.

Information leaflets are being given to all young people being offered the vaccine.

People who think

they may be pregnant, have a high temp-

erature on the day of

the injection or have

had a severe allergic reaction to a

previous immunisation should not have the shot.

Young people are also being warned the injection does not protect against the B strain of meningitis.

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