While there’s been a big focus on the Covid-19 vaccine, there’s also another vaccine health experts are pushing for as school leavers start thinking about heading off to university.
New Zealand has one of the worst rates of meningococcal disease - higher than Australia, the UK and the US - but the vaccine isn’t fully funded here.
Mark and Lisa Gallagher lost their daughter Letitia, also known as Tesh, several years ago, just as she’d left high school.
They say she became sick with flu-like symptoms and it became worse “very, very fast”.
“Four hours later and she was in ICU… We got told there was basically nothing they could do, it had gone straight to her brain,” Lisa told 1News.
New Zealand has a high rate of the disease, with more than 100 people getting it each year. Children under the age of five and students are most at risk.
According to Meningitis NZ, even with medical care, around one in every 10 patients who contract the disease will die, and one in five survivors will have permanent disabilities like brain damage and amputated limbs.
Other countries overseas fund the vaccines, but it isn’t part of the normal immunisation schedule here and must be sought out.
Only some of the strains are covered and are limited to some immunocompromised people as well as young people living in crowded situations like university halls and boarding schools.
Since the Gallaghers' two sons didn’t go to university, they don’t qualify for the funded vaccine.
“To get them both immunised for B as well as the A, C, Y and W is $800 for the two of them,” Mark said.
He worries about the many families in New Zealand who are unable to afford it.
“Especially in these times when people are really struggling financially anyway, there’s no way they’re going to be able to afford to pay $400 per child. If they’ve got five or six kids, that’s a small car's worth,” he said.
The Meningitis Foundation wants the Government to widen access to the vaccines for all common forms of meningococcal disease and also push for in-school vaccinations.
Virologist Helen Poutisis-Harris said this is something we need to think about before the borders reopen as there’ll likely be “a resurgence of a lot of infectious diseases”.
“Fortunately it's a really rare disease, it's just when it does happen it can be catastrophic,” she said.
Health Minister Andrew Little said a vaccine for the Meningococcal B strain will be available, adding that it "was funded for people who are close contacts of meningococcal cases or who are at higher risk of meningococcal disease” from July 1 this year.
He said drug-buying agency Pharmac is responsible for any decisions about which vaccines are free and for who, but “the Ministry of Health continues to look for opportunities to promote the vaccine and increase uptake”.
A petition was set up in July calling on the Government to widen the access to meningococcal vaccinations.
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