Harpenden woman calls for students to get Meningitis B vaccine

Just days after Sophia Speirs celebrated her 19th birthday she was left fighting for her life in hospital after contracting Meningitis B (MenB). Speirs, 22, from Harpenden, Hertfordshire, was studying Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Manchester at the time and when she begun to feel ill thought it might be norovirus. The condition left her hospitalised for nearly two weeks and she is now deaf in her right ear, but she said she felt she had been "lucky to get away with her life". Following the deaths of two people in Kent from an outbreak of meningitis, Speirs and her parents have called for others to get vaccinated against the illness. Routine MenB vaccinations were rolled out by the NHS in 2015 as part of childhood immunisations, which means those aged over 10 are not covered, however the vaccine is available privately. Speirs said she had no idea there was a MenB jab she could pay for privately, and if she had known she would have got it as "you can't put a price on your life". Speirs said she first became ill just a few days after her celebrating her birthday. "I had lots of friends visit and had been out with my uni friends. I was just doing normal student activities