$150 could have saved mydaughter ‘Why didn’t we know?’
Grieving father Paul Chapman wants to ensure more young people get a meningitis jab, writes Bridie Witton.
Grieving father Paul Chapman warns parents that a simple meningitis vaccine is the difference between life and death for their children after deadly disease takes daughter Miwa
Miwa Chapman could still be alive if her parents knew about a $150 meningitis vaccine.
Now her grieving father Paul Chapman wants to ensure as many young people as possible take up the vaccine, which since December is free for people aged 13 to 25 in close-living situations.
Chapman says students who don’t meet the criteria should be able to get the vaccine as an approved student loan item – an idea backed by Dr Bryan Betty, the medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP).
Miwa, a 19-year-old University of Canterbury student, died after she contracted meningitis in February.
Chapman struggles to talk about his daughter nine months after her death.
He is pushing for better awareness of the vaccine, which is available at any general practice.
‘‘Our family is devastated by her loss and cannot believe that a vaccine so readily available could have protected her. Why didn’t we know about it?’’
The popular second year engineering student loved swimming, spoke Japanese fluently and could play several instruments including the piano, clarinet, saxophone and bass guitar.
But she died in circumstances which would be any parent’s worst nightmare.
She attended an orientation week event in February. Perhaps she shared a drink with someone, or an e-cigarette, Chapman said.
Meningococcal bacteria are commonly carried in the nose and throat, and can be transferred from person to person through saliva.
The next day she was sick, but she and her flatmates presumed it was a flu, food poisoning or that she was hungover. She was so weak she couldn’t walk by Sunday evening but decided to wait until the next morning to see a doctor.
Her flatmates, who had cared for her over the night, found she was not breathing at 7am and
called an ambulance.
‘‘They would’ve been friends for life,’’ Chapman said.
Now he wants to make sure as many people as possible take up the vaccine, which the Ministry of Health started funding in December 2019 for people aged 13 to 25 in close-living situations. Miwa wouldn’t have qualified but Chapman says he would have paid the $150.
His calls for the vaccine to be included as an approved student loan item have been backed by medical experts.
‘‘The idea that it is included as an approved student loan item has currency,’’ Dr Bryan Betty, medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, said.
The vaccine usually costs between $144 to $150.
But many of those who qualify for the free vaccine now don’t know they are eligible, he added. Meningitis was particularly dangerous because it shares symptoms, which include fever, a stiff neck and headache, with the flu.
It also moves very quickly.
‘‘ It is a potentially devastating disease,’’ he said.
Last year, 10 people died from meningitis, meaning there were 10 bereft families, Chapman said.
‘‘If we could get that down by even one or two, that is a family that won’t have to go through what my family has gone through.
‘‘ I feel an obligation to increase awareness around something that is so easy to do. Lives could be saved.’’