A matter of life and death

EDITORIAL: THOUSANDS of parents will be wondering whether today is the day their child comes home ill.

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THOUSANDS of kids around the state will return to school today. As they do, thousands of parents will be left wondering whether today is the day their child comes home ill.

And if they do come home ill with flu-like symptoms, could it possibly be meningococcal?

The answer is yes. It could be meningococcal.

The deadly disease has already killed a teenager and hospitalised an infant and an adult male in the past fortnight.

The only relief for parents is knowing that their children have been vaccinated, once for the ACW and Y strains and again for the B strain.

However, therein lies the rub. The ACWY vaccine is given to infants and teens under a sponsored program but parents have to seek out the B strain vaccine and pay the full cost.

Mum-of-four Victoria Brumby will spend $1100 to vaccinate her children after school today, but poorer families are priced out of the strain B vaccinations.

The question is do parents need to have their children vaccinated against the B strain?

Who knows? The Tasmanian Government is yet to publicly release any information on what strains have been detected in the past fortnight.

One of the reasons given has been privacy, but this issue is not about privacy, it’s about public health.

Whatever strain or strains are out there, the public need to be informed. The more information we can have, the better.

Because there is a vacuum of public health information, the public is panicking and rushing to get vaccinations.

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As a parent, it’s very difficult to find out what’s going on. The government needs to get on the same page as the medical community and be upfront.

The message now should be how people can avoid contracting meningococcal and urge the significant percentage of unprotected at-risk teens and infants to get vaccinated.

Leading meningococcal health authorities are also calling on the State Government to publicly release the strains of the disease that tragically killed the Hobart teenager and hospitalised the two others.

And yet, Premier Will Hodgman says he is not in a position to release that information.

University of Sydney’s Professor Robert Booy, said the information should be released so that a suitable preventive measure could be undertaken.

“It’s important for the Government to release that information because different strains can spread in the community and we need to know which one is causing the problem.

Meningococcal Australia’s Eliza Ault-Connell also says it is important that the Government releases the information.

“If we start to share with the community the different stereotype groups, the community learns that there are different groups and different vaccinations,” she said.

Let’s be clear about this. The issue is not about political point scoring. All parties should be getting behind this message.

This is an issue beyond politics. It’s about life and death.