GSK's meningitis B vaccine Bexsero has been recommended for use as a single booster dose in children aged 10 and over by Europe's medicines regulator.
The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), which advises the European Medicines Agency, backed adding the booster to the vaccine's label for people who received Bexsero at least two years earlier.
The European Commission usually follows the committee's advice when it makes the final approval decision.
The recommendation rests on data showing that immunity built up by vaccination in infancy can be topped up with a single dose as much as 19 years later.
That matters because meningococcal disease has two peaks: one in infants and young children, and a second in teenagers and young adults.
Teenagers are more likely to catch or spread the bacteria because they socialise more, live in close quarters and may share personal items.
In Europe, serogroup B is the leading cause of the disease in every age group under 65.
The infection is uncommon but can cause meningitis or blood poisoning and become life-threatening very quickly.
GSK's late-stage trial enrolled 312 people aged 10 to 20 in Finland, Italy, Spain and the UK.
Of these, 234 had been vaccinated as babies and 78 had never had a meningitis B jab.
The study met its main goal of showing a stronger immune response to a booster in those vaccinated as infants than to a first dose in those who had not been.
Side effects were in line with the vaccine's known safety profile.
Bexsero is registered in 61 countries and about 140 million doses have been distributed since 2015.
In Europe, it is part of 15 infant immunisation programmes and three national programmes for teenagers.
Sanjay Gurunathan, GSK's head of vaccines research, said the first generation of children vaccinated against meningitis B as babies was now reaching adolescence.
