| Bracks plans meningococcal jabs Victorian children and teenagers will get free vaccinations against the deadly meningococcal C this year, the state government announced. Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said 630,000 children aged one to five years and teenagers between 15 and 19, considered to be most at risk, would be offered the inoculation. She said it would be available through general practitioners, maternal and child health centres and other immunisation centres. The program followed the deaths of 12 Victorians from meningococcal last year. Last month, the government conducted a mass inoculation of residents in the seaside town of Portland, after a 30-year-old woman died and three 19-year-old men from the town contracted the disease.
Ms Pike said the free program was aimed at those most at risk but would be extended at the end of the year to other youth age groups, including vaccinations for all school children.
"It's in everyone's interests, of course, to participate," she told ABC Radio. "Meningococcal C, as we know, can be a very, very devastating illness and we, as I've said, have seen a slight rise in that over the last few years. "We want to do everything that we possibly can to protect our very precious young people in our community."
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