Despite expert advice and campaigns from the Meningitis Foundation, Pharmac halts short of expanding free meningococcal vaccines for young New Zealanders, amid an 88% rise in cases among teens and young adults, prompting urgent calls for policy change.
Pharmac has stopped short of widening free meningococcal vaccination for more young New Zealanders, despite its own expert advisers having revisited the issue this year and the Meningitis Foundation pressing MPs for cross-party backing. In an August decision on vaccine supply agreements, the agency said there was still “unmet health need” for broader access to meningococcal vaccines, but it had not been able to extend funding further. That leaves the foundation still arguing for a universal adolescent programme and, at a minimum, free access for Community Services Card holders.
The pressure campaign comes as the pattern of disease has shifted. New ESR data reported by the New Zealand Herald showed meningococcal cases among teenagers and young adults up 88 per cent on the same period a year earlier, while recorded cases among Māori youth had trebled. The same report said the share of cases in people aged 15 to 29 had risen from 16 per cent to 35 per cent, even as cases in infants under one fell by 60 per cent. Meningococcal disease remains uncommon, but it can be catastrophic: about one in 10 patients die and up to one in five survivors are left with permanent disability, including brain injury, hearing loss or amputations.
The gap between who is most at risk and who gets funded protection sits at the heart of the dispute. The foundation says older children and young adults need both MenB and ACWY vaccines for the broadest cover, yet many families outside the funded categories must pay privately. LiveNews reported that people not eligible for free doses face paying about $150 per dose, with two MenB doses and one ACWY dose recommended for older children and adults. Pharmac’s own August material records that the foundation asked for widened access for adolescents and young adults and for Community Services Card holders, but that proposals capable of delivering those extensions within the available budget did not emerge through the process.
For bereaved families, the argument is brutally simple. In October last year, 1News reported that three young New Zealanders had died from meningitis in the space of five weeks. The report followed Todd Hodder, who was walking 172.6km from Oamaru to Ashburton to raise $7,000 for the Meningitis Foundation after the death of her 16-year-old son, Dion. “Being vaccinated would have been exactly what Dion needed, he would still be here,” she said. Gerard Rushton, the foundation chair, told the broadcaster that the disease “can take a life in 24 hours” and said the present rules for adolescents were “far too narrow”.
The foundation’s case is not only about prevention. It is also asking for proper long-term support for survivors, many of whom say help falls away once the acute crisis is over. LiveNews reported that Penny Taylor, who lost both legs below the knee and several fingers after meningococcal disease, told MPs that once she left hospital “everything stopped”. She said she had to fight for rehabilitation herself and eventually raised what she called “a deposit on a house” to pay for osteo-integration surgery in Australia after standard prosthetics caused pain. Rushton has argued that awareness remains poor and that a school-based vaccination programme would catch young people before they move into work, study or other settings where infection can spread.
Another family story cited by the Meningitis Foundation underlines how easily meningitis can be missed and how expensive private protection can be. Phoebe, a Christchurch teenager, was twice told she probably had flu before her condition deteriorated so badly that a student doctor spotted something wrong during an eye examination and a neurologist told her family surgery was needed immediately because her brain was swelling. She later spent seven days in hospital on intravenous antibiotics and received a blood transfusion. Phoebe says friends who saw what happened were vaccinated afterwards, with their parents paying $300 to $400. She also said there had been “no information available” from her medical centre or in public advertising to show teenagers might need another vaccine.
The current push is the latest phase of a campaign that has already run through Parliament and Pharmac for years. An earlier RNZ report said the Meningitis Foundation delivered a 6,357-signature petition calling for free access for under-16s. At the time, Gerard Rushton argued that prevention was cheaper than the consequences, saying one recent hospitalisation had cost more than $1 million and lifetime care for someone who lost limbs could run to “north of $10 million”. Pharmac’s response then was that it operated within a fixed government-set budget and had to make difficult choices because there would always be more medicines it wanted to fund than it could afford.
Health New Zealand says it has tried to improve awareness while the funding debate drags on. Christine McIntosh, the agency’s national clinical director for protection, said advice had been sent through the Immunisation Advisory Centre to about 32,000 vaccinators, mainly GPs, while boarding schools and tertiary institutions had been contacted about eligibility and promotional material. Yet even among those sympathetic to broader access, there is caution about how far a public programme should stretch. Nikki Turner said she would support expansion if the country had the resources, but argued vaccination still had to be targeted and noted that protection wanes after three to five years. For the Meningitis Foundation, however, the central point has not changed: if the burden is moving into adolescence and young adulthood, it says the vaccine programme has not caught up.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
