Mark Pawsey MP is backing Meningitis Research Foundation’s activity ‘Meningitis Matters’ - to raise awareness of meningitis and septicaemia, and to ensure that tackling the diseases remains a top public health priority while the current NHS reforms are implemented.
Meningitis is still a serious and life-threatening disease, affecting around 3,400 people in the UK each year . Infants and young people are at greatest risk : meningitis causes the largest number of deaths amongst children under five - more than any other infectious disease .
Meningitis Matters aims to raise awareness of the disease and ensure that the changes imposed by the new Health and Social Care Act 2012 do not have a destabilising effect on meningitis research, surveillance and immunisation rates.
Supporting Meningitis Matters, Mark met with Rugby resident Lynn Bayliss whose son Jacob contracted pneumococcal meningitis in 2010 when he was five months to discuss her personal experience of the disease.
Lynn said: “At no time did we ever think there was anything serious wrong, let alone the fact it could be meningitis. We have never felt as helpless as parents and it was very difficult for us to understand and comprehend the seriousness of the illness. Jacob remained in hospital for nearly 3 weeks and ‘touch wood’ he has no lasting effects although he is still very young and the effects may show a little later in his life. I am backing the Meningitis Matters campaign to make sure that meningitis does remain a high priority during the NHS reforms and to ensure that all children are protected against all forms of the disease.”
Along with other MPs, Mark has signed a pledge calling on the Government to introduce new meningitis vaccines as soon as readily available. Many deadly strains of meningitis remain uncontrolled, and vaccination is still the most effective way to prevent and control it.
Mark concluded: “Meningitis hasn't gone away - it still kills far too many children and leaves many more with life-long disabilities. Although real progress has been made over the last decade, more needs to be done. Meningitis and septicaemia are terrible diseases which are vaccine preventable and no child should be dying from them in today’s world.”