Despite its severity and potential for outbreaks, awareness of meningococcal meningitis is not at the level it should be. College students, in particular, are at higher risk but may not be sufficiently informed or motivated to get vaccinated. Fortunately, the CDC’s guidelines for immunizations have included recommendations for meningococcal disease vaccinations for many years. Primarily, this is a recommendation for the quadrivalent vaccine for serotypes A, C, W, and Y (MenACWY). However, these vaccines do not cover serotype B, which accounts for 30-50% of meningococcal disease cases in North America. They should therefore be complemented with BEXSERO (meningococcal group B vaccine), which is used to provide active immunization to prevent invasive disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B (MenB). BEXSERO is relatively new on the market, and many vaccine recipients are unaware of how vulnerable to meningitis infections they still are even after receiving the MenACWY vaccine.
Vaccines don’t work in people who don’t receive them. Something had to be done to address the knowledge gap.
GSK decided to address the knowledge gap by equipping healthcare professionals (HCP) with the tools they need to have productive conversations with their patients about MenB vaccination. The idea behind this avenue of communication is that HCPs are the ideal channel to reach patients at the exact moment when vaccinations are discussed. During those conversations, patients are most likely to take their doctor’s recommendation, so it’s critical that HCPs are aware of the availability and the importance of the MenB vaccine.
Choice or Chance is a video series hosted on a microsite for U.S.-based HCPs. The four beautifully shot videos tell the authentic, real-life stories of young adults and families who have had horrific encounters with MenB. They follow Ashley, who had to give up her dream of becoming a professional ballerina due to the disabilities she was left with after surviving MenB; Nate, who became a National Park Ranger despite the amputations he had to have to survive MenB and who urges doctors to take steps to protect their patients from contracting it; Sarah, a MenB survivor, and her mother and advocate Missy, who had originally been under the impression that Sarah's MenACWY vaccine would protect her completely from meningitis but found Sarah severely impacted by MenB; and Kim, who likens her responsibility as a parent to a school's efforts to keep the children in their care safe, and who felt helpless as she watched her daughter, Lindsey, battle meningitis B twice.
While many individuals contracting MenB don't live to tell their story, all of the Choice or Chance stories are ultimately stories of survival. The individuals portrayed are motivated to share their perspectives, looking back at the moment where they could have chosen to get themselves or their children immunized, and hoping to spare others from having to go through the same suffering they had endured.
The Choice or Chance microsite also allows HCPs to register for an upcoming MenB survivor speaker program, where people like Ashley, Nate, Sarah and Missy, and Kim share their stories alongside qualified expert presentations, which is intended to further deepen the professionals' understanding of MenB and ways to prevent it.
As of September 6, 2023, https://menbchoiceorchance.com has recorded 3,535 site visits over the last 6 full months. Considering the content targets HCPs, this is a significant number, since each of these visits could make a difference in several patients’ choice of whether or not to seek protection from MenB.
What also stands out is how the audience interacts and pays attention to the content: Given the videos’ runtime of 10 minutes, it’s extraordinary to record an average completion rate of 39.52%. In some months for some of the videos, it was as high as 66.67%. For online videos of this length, that level of engagement is unusual and speaks to how the portrayed individuals truly captivate the audience and garner empathy.
Each video provides irrefutable evidence that MenB does affect real people—people you may know. They show that the consequences of an infection are often very severe. And they provide hope and demonstrate that you don’t have to be helpless in the face of MenB.
