Trials of a new meningitis vaccine have produced “exciting” results that could help combat the disease.
There is currently no jab to protect against strains of meningitis B, which account for about 90 per cent of cases in the UK.
Meningitis B is a deadly type – sometimes killing babies and toddlers in under four hours.
Now new data on a vaccine called 4CMenB found it guarded against about 80 per cent of 1,000 meningitis B strains from across Europe.
Results from 1,800 children found it worked well alone or with vaccines for other strains of the disease.
A further study on 1,500 toddlers found it offered protection when given as a booster jab, while another showed an immune response in adolescents.
The charity Meningitis UK said the new vaccine has the potential to save thousands of lives in the future.
Chief executive officer Steve Dayman said the results were exciting, adding: “This data is a very positive step in the fight to eradicate meningitis B, which is the biggest killer of all types of meningitis in the UK.
“This vaccine is the first of its kind and has the potential to save thousands of lives.”
There are already vaccines against some forms of meningitis, including Hib, meningitis C and pneumococcal meningitis.
But a meningitis B vaccine would offer a real breakthrough – it is responsible for more than 1,200 cases of the disease each year in the UK and 120 deaths.
Around 250 children are left with serious life-long complications such as limb amputations, blindness, deafness and brain damage as a result of the disease.
The European Medicines Agency is appraising the new jab before it is considered for use in the UK immunisation programme.
Mr Dayman added: “It is anticipated that the EMA licence decision will be made around Christmas this year.
“There are still a number of questions to be answered about the vaccine and we are extremely hopeful that the decision will be positive.”
The data for the jab, made by Novartis, was presented at the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases in The Hague.