Too many hurt by meningococcal disease

FOR a disease that is supposedly rare, there are an awful lot of cases of meningococcal.

• Brutal reality of monster disease
• State waits for vaccine
• Zoe died in just 16 hours

FOR a disease that is supposedly rare, there are an awful lot of cases.

Survivors without limbs, with brain damage and hideous scarring from skin grafts.

Parents of children who have died because of this meningococcal monster — so many broken people have contacted The Courier-Mail since our exclusive story on Zoe McGinty last Saturday.

Zoe was an otherwise healthy 20-year-old who contracted the W strain.

One morning she told her mum she felt tired. Sixteen hours later, Zoe was dead.

Following Kirsten McGinty’s brave decision to share her eldest child’s story in the hope of saving lives, the 47-year-old from Clayfield also has been swamped with tragic tales.

“I’ve spent the past week talking to people devastated by this horrific disease, people like me who thought it was a gastro bug or a mild dose of the flu,” Ms McGinty said.

“Strangers have come up to me in the supermarket and hugged me.

“Zoe hated being the centre of attention so she might be cursing me from heaven, but I think she’d be proud of what we are achieving.”

Ms McGinty, the Queensland representative of Meningococcal Australia, is driving a campaign for free immunisation against all five strains, A, B, C, W and Y.

“We have a cure, it’s called vaccination.”