Two deaths, including an infant, spark push for free meningococcal B vaccination

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Doctors and families are calling for the meningococcal B vaccine to be made free in Victoria after an infant and an elderly person died from the disease and another five fell ill.

Outgoing chief health officer Brett Sutton issued an alert on Friday urging doctors to be on the lookout for the disease after seven cases were detected in the community this year.

Meningococcal disease is an uncommon but serious bacterial infection that requires urgent medical care to prevent death or disability.Credit: Getty

“People with meningococcal disease can become very unwell within a few hours and it can lead to death or disability,” Sutton said. “Early diagnosis and treatment are critical.”

Most of the people struck down by the disease were aged between the ages of 15 and 20 and infected with strain B. The cohort included a Ballarat Grammar staff member, who was hospitalised last month. He was discharged on Friday and no other staff members or students have been diagnosed with the disease.

The two people who died were a one-year-old and a person in their 90s.

While children are vaccinated for free against meningococcal strains A, C, W and Y under the federally funded National Immunisation Program, strain B is an optional vaccination that costs families up to $360 per child.

In the absence of federal funding, the South Australian government is now footing the bill for free meningococcal B vaccines for babies and year 10 students.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners rural chair professor Michael Clements said many families could not afford the meningococcal B vaccine, which requires three doses costing about $120 each if a child is under one, or two doses if they are over one.

“It really saddens me,” he said. “You have several grieving families here in Victoria.”

Clements said families assumed they did not need any additional vaccines other than what was funded through the National Immunisation Program.

“They are lulled into a false sense of security because the government doesn’t pay,” he said. “It is one of those diseases where every medical student is taught about and every parent fears the worst.”

Meningococcal bacteria spreads through close, prolonged or intimate contact. Children aged under two, adolescents and young adults between 15 and 24, smokers, and people with respiratory tract infections such as influenza and COVID-19 are at heightened risk.

Symptoms include fever, chills, headache, neck stiffness, sensitivity to light, vomiting, muscle pain, reduced consciousness and red and purple spots on the skin or bruises. People who develop symptoms are advised to seek urgent care.

Meningitis Centre Australia chair Bruce Langoulant said the meningococcal B was now the dominant strain in Australia thanks to the success of widespread vaccination against other previously common strains.

He said he’d like to see vaccination funded in Victoria and other states so that every child was offered protection.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged under two and people at increased risk due to certain medical conditions are eligible for a free meningococcal B vaccination under the National Immunisation Program.

Langoulant said his group – which raises awareness and provides support to families and survivors of meningitis and meningococcal – had successfully advocated for the pneumococcal meningitis vaccine to be included in the program after his daughter contracted the disease when she was six months old.

She has never walked or talked, is profoundly deaf, intellectually disabled and has cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

“These are the consequences,” he said. Langoulant said up to 40 per cent of people who contracted meningococcal B ended up with a long-lasting disability.

Between 1997 and 2016, meningococcal disease caused 396 deaths in Australia. Almost one-third of these were among children aged under five, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Australian Medical Association Victorian president Jill Tomlinson said it was very difficult to put a price on a person’s life, but she recognised that not every medication could be funded.

A Victorian Department of Health spokesman said the state was guided by the National Immunisation Program, which was determined by the Commonwealth, when it came to vaccine eligibility. “We’re monitoring meningococcal cases in Victoria closely,” he said.

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