Shane Reti: Meningitis shows itself again in Northland

In the past four weeks there have been four cases of meningitis in the Northland region. There are calls to make the vaccine free to under-16s Photo / 123rf

OPINION

In the past four weeks there have been four cases of meningitis in the Northland region. To put this in perspective, just 11 cases were reported across the rest of New Zealand in the entire year through the end of May 2022.

This data, which comes from the Institute for Environmental Science and Research, is alarming. Meningitis is a serious condition involving inflammation of the lining of the brain. All four recent cases involved children under five, and all required hospitalisation.

Northland has seen this before. The last formally declared meningitis outbreak was in Northland in 2018/19 with the tragic death of three children. That outbreak was of W strain meningitis, whereas this cluster is B strain. This matters because the vaccines are generally different for these two strains.

This brings me to two meningitis petitions that are currently active in the parliamentary system. The first is a parliamentary petition which I led, requesting an inquiry into the Northland meningitis outbreak.

Over the ensuing Covid delayed period, the select committee has heard many concerns, including that some parts of the Northland response appeared slow and documentation suggesting Pharmac had withheld an offer of meningitis vaccines from health officials.

Pharmac and Ministry of Health officials, including director general Ashley Bloomfield, appeared in front of the select committee. Covid slowed down the petitions' progress, but this will likely be concluded in the next month or so with observations that hopefully improve the next meningitis outbreak.

The second petition I received earlier this year from Gerard Rushton with support from the Meningitis Foundation which reads "That the House of Representatives urge the New Zealand Government to expand access to meningococcal vaccines and provide free vaccine for all preventable forms of meningococcal disease to all students in Year 11 (or at 16 years of age) before they leave school to work, study, or pursue other activities."

At its core this petition explores placing the meningitis vaccine on the national immunisation register as a free vaccine along with measles, whooping cough and other routine vaccinations".

This petition has received wide support and is currently in process with the select committee.

Around the time I received the Rushton petition, Andrew Little replied to a ministerial question stating that around 17,000 precious meningitis vaccines had been allowed to expire at the cost of $1.6 million over the past two years.

At a time when the Rushtons and others are trying so hard to get meningitis vaccination widely deployed, this is a very bitter pill to swallow.

Every vaccine-preventable condition is serious, but meningitis can be particularly hard to diagnose, progresses extremely rapidly and a significant number progress to death or suffer consequences such as amputation.

We look forward to the select committee reporting back soon on these two petitions. We will keep our fingers crossed that meningitis is not about to revisit Northland, or indeed the parents of children anywhere else in New Zealand, any time soon.