Frustration mounts over lack of disease vaccine funding

A meningitis support group says it is frustrated by its failure to get the Federal Government to fund a vaccine for pneumococcal disease in this year’s Budget.

A meningitis support group says it is frustrated by its failure to get the Federal Government to fund a vaccine for pneumococcal disease in this year’s Budget.The Perth lobby group says while it believes it has strong support, it has been unable to convince Cabinet to allocate up to $80 million needed to vaccinate all children under five and adults over 65.The Federal Health Minister’s office says no official decision will be announced until the Budget is handed down on May 11.Each year, 2,200 Australians contract pneumococcal disease and about 100 die.Perth man Bruce Langoulant’s daughter now has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and is profoundly deaf.He says they will not give up until the vaccine is put on the compulsory schedule.”I think the thing that’s stopped it at the moment has just been a focus on getting tax cuts,” he said.”I really don’t think the decision makers understand the issue with pneumococcal disease. A lot of them are finding it hard to pronounce, let alone understand it.”He says it means a sentence for other young children.”The cost is a mounting death rate – we’ll lose one child to pneumococcal disease each month,” he said. “We’ll have 60 others a month who’ll contract it. A number of those, a significant number, 25 per cent, will end up with some life-long disability such as cerebral palsy.”The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has joined the chorus of condemnation.The chairman of the AMA’s Child and Youth Health Committee, Michael Rice, says such a decision would go against the recommendations of the Government’s own experts.”It’s a stupid decision,” he said. “It portrays an enormous lack of vision. “It makes a mockery of public health recommendations and any child whose family had the misfortune to get pneumococcal infection could rightly feel very aggrieved.”(Source: ABC Health News, May 2004)