Meningococcal B vaccine must be urgently added to the National Immunisation Program

Meningococcal B is a life-threatening disease that few survive and if they do, most will lose limbs. It’s also vaccine preventable. So why is the federal government not making this jab freely available, asks Kylie Lang.

It is particularly cruel that the people with the most life to live are the prime targets of deadly meningococcal disease.

I’m talking about children under five, teenagers and young adults under 25.

Meningococcal survivor Phoebe O’Connell on her battle with illness

And it is bordering on criminal that authorities are still dithering about funding vaccines while these innocents are dying or being maimed.

Children don’t do anything “wrong” to contract this brutal infection — they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like Phoebe O’Connell, who had a miraculous tale of survival.

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My heart broke when I interviewed this courageous 18 year old, who finished senior in 2017, the same year as my son. They knew each other, and one of my son’s best mates was her partner at Brisbane’s All Hallows’ formal.

Just as easily, it could have been my child who was lying in that hospital bed, fighting for life.

Meningococcal survivor Phoebe O’Connell, 18, in hospital. Picture: Supplied

Just as easily, it could be he who is now facing a gruesome and costly rehabilitation.

However, mine was fully vaccinated (as am I) and that, in no small measure of gratitude, is because of another wholly preventable tragedy shared by Brisbane mum Kirsten McGinty with The Courier-Mail readers last year.

Zoe McGinty was 20 when meningococcal stole her life.

And here’s the thing: immunisation isn’t cheap, if you are aged outside the funded brackets for the ACWY quad vaccine (12 months, and 15-19 years), and the B vaccine isn’t funded by either the state or federal government.

RELATED OPINION: Vaccines should be a right, not a privilege

While there is fresh hope that the B vaccine might finally be added to the National Immunisation Program, that doesn’t help people now. And you need to be vaccinated against all five strains.

Babies need up to four jabs of B, at $120 a pop, older kids and adults two jabs. The ACWY vaccine costs $100.

The upfront cost might seem high — but I ask you, how could your dollars be better spent? A family trip to Dreamworld? A weekend away?

It’s time to make the B vaccination free of charge. Picture: iStock

There is no question that these vaccines work — I’m sick of ignorant anti-vaxxers who are deliberately blind to the science — but the trick is to get people to go to their GP when they are not yet sick.

Young adults, like my boy, are frustratingly apathetic about preventative action, because they think they are bullet proof and will live forever.

I know 20 year olds who’ve been nagged by their parents to get the B vaccination but then they only get one jab and can’t be stuffed going back for the second. Pointless.

In a ridiculously shortsighted approach to public health, authorities who approve and fund vaccines look at the cost ratio of saving lives — how many people in the population are likely to get meningococcal — but they also need to factor in the ongoing millions being spent on survivors.

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Many need prosthetic limbs, ongoing counselling, and their capacity to work is compromised. And how about counting the trauma and exhaustion experienced also by their carers, who are typically family members?

I’d have thought clever governments would be considering the bigger picture.

But wishful thinking won’t save our kids.

Kylie Lang is the associate editor of The Courier-Mail.

Originally published as Meningococcal B vaccine must be urgently added to the National Immunisation Program