It’s time to seize the chance and prevent needless child deaths

In January this year Andrea Walker was out shopping for bridesmaid dresses with her youngest daughter Ellie. Within the week, without any warning, her three-year-old daughter had died.

“Ellie was due to be bridesmaid at the wedding of my eldest daughter and she couldn’t have been more excited,” says Andrea, who lives in Keighley. “The next day she seemed a bit sniffly, but nothing major. Every parent worries about meningitis and even though Ellie hadn’t complained of a headache or anything like that, I did check for a rash.”

Relieved to find there was nothing abnormal, Andrea thought all her daughter needed was a dose of Calpol and a good night’s sleep. “She was such a bright, happy child and always used to wake up around the same time as me, but that morning she didn’t,” says Andrea. “I went into her room and she just felt so cold. I screamed to my husband to call an ambulance but it was too late.”

Ellie was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital and while a post-mortem initially proved inconclusive, a later coroner’s report concluded she had died from streptococcal septicaemia, a strain of bacteria which also causes meningitis.

“Ellie didn’t have a chance. In the months since she died I’ve asked myself so many times could I have done anything different, but it was out of my hands. Had I once thought there was something seriously wrong I would have taken her straight to hospital.”

The rapid speed at which meningitis and septicaemia can claim lives is one of the reasons why calls for the introduction of a new vaccine having being growing louder. It’s also the focus of Meningitis Awareness Week which begins today.

The Meningitis Research Foundation estimates that meningitis and septicaemia affects more than 3,600 people in the UK and Ireland each year. They can strike without warning, killing one in 10, and leaving a quarter of survivors with life altering after-effects ranging from deafness and brain damage to loss of limbs. Children under five and students are most at risk, but while a vaccine to protect against meningococcal B infection is currently under consideration, there are fears it may not be introduced because of costs.

“The Department of Health’s own studies show meningitis is the disease most feared by parents,” says Chris Head, chief executive of the foundation. “It’s one of the few illnesses in modern Britain that can kill or seriously maim a healthy child within hours of the first symptoms.

“With the UK Government committed to reducing child deaths it is inconceivable that a MenB vaccine should be licensed yet go unused in the UK.

“The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has failed to take into account the full impact of Men B and cost to the NHS, adopting a narrow view which ignores the years of expensive and traumatic treatment or the tens of millions of pounds which are paid out in negligence claims to families who successfully sue for mismanagement and misdiagnosis.

“Prevention has to be the best option, that’s why we have invested more than £17m in vital research. But now the UK has the chance to save more than 1,000 a year from the devastation of Men B. Surely we should be seizing it and taking that all-important step towards a world free from meningitis and septicaemia.”