Clinic for toddler meningitis C vaccine?
Does anyone know a local clinic (Berkeley; willing to drive) where we can get a meningitis C vaccine for our toddler? We travel frequently to Canada, where it's given as part of the routine vaccination schedule at 12 months due to the disease profile there. Our pediatrician agrees with our reasoning for getting the vaccine, but they don't necessarily stock it at their clinic. They may be able to special order it for us, but I feel like it might be better if we could get it at a clinic where they're accustomed to administering it semi-routinely. Thank you!
Jun 26, 2024
Parent Replies
Not a doctor but work regularly with vaccines and questions of access.
For childhood vaccines in general, the best place for kids to be vaccinated is at their primary care provider's office. For toddlers, it is pretty much the only place to be vaccinated as pharmacists in California cannot vaccinate children under 3, so retail pharmacies are not an option.
In terms of getting this particular vaccine, you are correct that meningococcal C vaccination is not routinely recommended in the US for young chilren. That said, the CDC does have a risk-based recommendation for meningococcal ACWY vaccines for children as young as 2 months old, which includes travel to an area of risk. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mening/hcp/recommendations.html
There is a routine recommendation for meningococcal ACWY vaccine for adolescents, so your pediatrician should already have that vaccine in office. Meningococcal ACWY vaccine protects against 4 serogroups of meningococcal disease (A,C,W, and Y) instead of the monovalent meningococcal C vaccine, which offers protection against that one serogroup C. Men ACWY is a pretty standard vaccine in terms of storage and injection method, so I wouldn't worry about having your pediatrician's office administer it. Here's the patient vaccine information statement from the CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/mening.pdf
Hopefully your child is comfortable with your pediatrician's office, your pediatrician already knows your child's medical history, and it will be easier for follow-up if you had questions abuot any side effects, so I would definitely lean towards vaccination at their office even if it were possible to be vaccinated elsewhere. I don't think you'll find anywhere that regularly carries the monovalent (protection against C only) vaccine in the US. It's also just really hard to find pediatricians who will vaccinate children who are not their patients. The exception to this is concierge practices, but that is pricey. I can't think of any reason why it would be better to get the monovalent meningococcal C vaccine vs. the meningococcal ACWY vaccine but I'm not your child's doctor. If for some reason your pediatrician is recommending the monovalent vaccine over the meningococcal ACWY vaccine, and willing to order it for you, I would let them.