The Meningitis Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand has sent a
delegation of representatives to Parliament this week, ahead
of making a critical presentation to Parliament’s Health
select committee.
The Foundation will be making an
oral submission to Parliament’s Health committee on
Wednesday 26 October. The submission is a critical component
of the Foundation’s campaign calling on Parliament to make
two currently available vaccines, which cover the most
common strains of meningococcal disease, free for all young
people.
In March 2022, the Meningitis Foundation
presented a petition to Dr Shane Reti, National Spokesperson
for Health, signed by 6,357 New Zealanders. The petition
urges the Government to fund both meningococcal vaccines for
the most common strains of meningococcal disease – the B
and A, C, W, & Y strains – for all 16-year-olds before
they leave school.
There have already been 55 cases of
invasive meningococcal disease reported in New Zealand so
far this year, including several deaths. Seventy per cent of
those cases are Māori and Pasifika.
The most recent
case occurred in North Dunedin last week, and the Meningitis
Foundation’s Pete Rowlands says that New Zealand’s
progress in the fight against Meningitis is well behind
other vaccine preventable diseases – and well behind other
OECD nations.
“Meningitis outbreaks are associated
with substantial cost to society, and a significant burden
on communities due to the cost associated with the
prevention of secondary cases,” he says.
Pete says
that the Government has already committed to defeating
meningitis by 2030, at the World Health Organisation’s
World Health Assembly in November 2020. Despite that, he
says, little progress seems to have been made in the last
two years.
Pete and his wife Helen were devastated
after losing their 16 our son Gareth to meningococcal
septicaemia in 2003, and in 2016 they faced the terrible
disease again when their daughter, Sian, was diagnosed with
viral meningitis in 2017 at the age of 32.
“It is
vital that Parliament unanimously supports provision of the
meningococcal B and ACWY vaccines as part of a vaccination
programme for all college students prior to leaving
education by the age of 16,” he says.
“We already
know there is a significant risk of epidemic outbreaks in
countries who do not have a national vaccination programme.
The Government must act immediately and demonstrate how
seriously it is taking its commitment to promises made in
2020.
The Meningitis Foundation’s chairperson,
Gerard Rushton, says medical advice received by the
Foundation indicates another epidemic is on the
horizon.
“Treatment often comes too late, and a
patient can die within 24 hours. We need to be proactive as
prevention is more effective than treatment. The protection
of our whānau through a comprehensive vaccination programme
to defeat this disease lies squarely with the
Government.
“Overseas data shows that vaccination
works. New Zealanders are 2.5 times more likely than
Australians, and 25 times more likely than an individual in
the USA to contract meningococcal disease.
More than
80% of Aotearoa’s population is vaccinated against
COVID-19, which has a mortality rate of 0.17%. By
comparison, the mortality rate for meningococcal disease in
2019 was 7.2%.
For those who survive, the consequences
are severe and lifelong: in 2015 a French study estimated
the life-long cost of care could reach up to NZD$3.9
million.
Gerard Rushton says that the life-long cost
of care for a single survivor could cover the cost of a
vaccination programme.
“By our calculations, based
on 60,000 births per year, a vaccine which we estimate the
Government could purchase for around $50 per dose would
enable a vaccination programme to be implemented at the
equivalent cost of life-long care for one survivor. If the
Government wishes to conduct a cost-benefit analysis, the
answer is a straight-forward one,” he says.
The
present meningococcal ACW&Y vaccination programme
excludes the most deadly form of meningitis –
meningococcal B. Vaccination rates set by the Government
have failed to reach their target.
Reported uptake in
universities and boarding schools is extremely low, and the
most at-risk groups in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika, are 4
– 5 times more likely to contract the disease and are
disproportionately disadvantaged by the narrow criteria of
the current ACW&Y vaccination programme.
Gerard
Rushton says there is a lack of awareness throughout both
the wider community and with medical professionals about the
need for vaccination, and who is eligible under the existing
vaccination programme.
Gerard and his wife Claire,
also a member of the Meningitis Foundation board, lost their
beloved daughter Courtenay to meningitis in
2014.
Claire Rushton says her daughter Courtenay’s
story will be echoed amongst other families if determined
efforts are not made to eliminate meningitis. She has a
powerful message to members of the Health
committee:
“It has taken a very long time for us to
remember Courtenay without the associated pain and trauma,
for the girl she actually was and, in our hearts, still is
– a vibrant, beautiful, fit and clever young person who
had so much to offer the world,” she
says.
“Courtenay’s death was preventable. It is no
longer acceptable for the Government to continue placing the
ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – hospital emergency
departments are already under a huge amount of pressure.
Prevention must come before
treatment.”
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