Grieving mother begs Government to fund vaccine

Nicole Edgerton with her son Zack. She and husband Dean paid to have him vaccinated after losing their baby daughter. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Mother's Day 2004, 10.45am, and Nicole Edgerton's baby girl was dead. Presley was five weeks old.

Mrs Edgerton remembers the birth, the various names she and husband Dean had been tossing up, and him announcing the name "Presley" to everyone in the theatre, deciding the issue once and for all.

It is immensely difficult talking about your child's death, but the Auckland woman hopes it will help to prevent others.

Presley was a victim of a pneumococcal infection, a leading cause of meningitis and pneumonia. Every year, up to 500 New Zealanders are diagnosed with severe pneumo-coccal disease - 150 of them infants.

Although those with vulnerable immune systems are most at risk, the Meningitis Trust says 81 per cent of cases occur in children with no known risk. A quarter of survivors are left with serious disabilities including cerebral palsy, epilepsy and deafness.

A vaccine, Prevenar, is 97 per cent effective, but its use is only funded for those most at risk.

Next Wednesday, Mrs Edgerton will be part of a 150-strong crowd representing the Meningitis Trust marching to Parliament to present an open letter calling for free access to Prevenar for all New Zealand children.

The trust is renewing its calls for the vaccine to be included in the 2008 national immunisation schedule, which health officials are reviewing next month and will finalise in October.

Prevenar is on the vaccination list in Australia but the only way parents can get it in New Zealand is to pay.

Trust manager Fiona Colbert urged the Government to pay for the vaccine.

"Many parents will simply not be able to afford the $400 or so it will cost to purchase the pneumococcal vaccine privately.

"It's equally as devastating as meningococcal disease. There's no need for our children to be suffering from these sorts of infections when there are perfectly adequate and safe vaccines there to protect them."

After Presley's death, the Edgertons paid privately for their son Zack, then 20 months old, to be vaccinated.

"We could not live with ourselves if we knew about the vaccination and did not protect our son and then he became infected as well," said Mrs Edgerton.

That terrible May 9, it took just three hours between finding Presley having difficulty breathing and covered with a rash and the decision to turn off her life support in the paediatric intensive care unit.

"I don't remember a lot of her time in [the unit]," said Mrs Edgerton, "but the things I do remember no parent should have to see."

CHILD KILLERS

Pneumococcal infection

Bacterial infection spread by airborne droplets that can cause fever, ear infections, septicaemia (blood poisoning), pneumonia and meningitis (inflammation of the brain lining). The latter two are the most common occurrences, often accompanied by blood poisoning, with mortality rates among infants for pneumococcal meningitis around 30 per cent.

Meningococcal disease

A rapidly progressing, often fatal infectious disease that causes meningitis and septicaemia. Illness occurs quickly with fevers, chills, collapse and sometimes a rash. Death can occur within several hours despite antibiotic therapy.

Source: Immunisation Advisory Centre