Claudia Gill was just 18 years old when she was just hours away from dying when meningococcus attacked her body.
Two years later, the college student warns everyone to be careful about the symptoms.
After returning home from a long holiday in Queensland, the New South Wales woman felt fatigued, her ears were very sensitive to sound and a ringing sound was ringing in her head.
His neck stiffened, he vomited and passed out.
The young woman was rushed to hospital and doctors discovered she had a life-threatening meningococcal B bacterial infection. Doctors told her that if she had arrived at the hospital later, it was very likely that she would have died.
Freelance Picture Task New South Wales woman Claudia Gill contracted meningococcus in 2022
Freelance Picture Task New South Wales woman Claudia Gill contracted meningococcus in 2022
His recovery required five nights in the hospital, weeks of rest, and little by little he returned to work and study. Two years later, Mrs Gill suffers from more frequent and severe headaches.
Once he left the hospital, he wanted to find the community of people who had suffered from the disease and find out what had attacked his body.
From there, Ms. Gill began speaking to community and advocacy groups, and realized it would be a good test case for advocacy against the disease.
“It appears so quickly… it was pretty scary,” Gill said.
He wants people to be aware of the symptoms so they can act quickly if they suspect an infection.
Ms Gill only had a mild rash, which tends to be a later symptom often associated with meningococcus.
The rash was followed by progressively increasing sensitivity to light and sound, neck stiffness, nausea, back stiffness, vomiting, and eventually total body stiffness and headaches.
‘If I had had the rash earlier, we would have acted sooner. But that’s why it’s so important to know all the symptoms,” he said.
Meningococcus is a type of bacteria that can enter the bloodstream and cause blood poisoning.
Vaccines against variants A, C, W and Y are free in Australia for newborns, young people aged 14 to 16 years and people with asplenia and hyposplenia, complement deficiency and those receiving treatment with eculizumab.
Mrs Gill contracted meningococcus B. Vaccination against this disease is free for people with the immune conditions mentioned above, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander newborns.
Deaths from meningococcus in Australia are in the news due to the wide vaccination coverage we have, but also due to the rapid appearance of the disease.
Last week, one Western Australian adult died from the disease and two others were hospitalized; The cases were not linked, but it was the first death in the state since 2020.
Mrs Gill studies in Newcastle, but is originally from Wollongong.
Vaccines against variants A, C, W and Y are free in Australia for newborns, young people aged 14 to 16 years and people with asplenia and hyposplenia, complement deficiency and those receiving treatment with eculizumab.
It was in Wollongong in late 2022 that 23-year-old Brayden Chater became brain dead and died from meningococcus B.
His condition deteriorated rapidly over the space of 24 hours, from feeling like he had a fever to seizures and unresponsiveness.
Doctors couldn’t tell Gill where he contracted the bacteria.
Across Australia there were 143 laboratory-confirmed cases of all meningococcal variants in 2023. Infections were most common in young children and those aged 15 to 19 years.
New South Wales had the most cases (36) last year, but the Northern Territory and South Australia had the highest incidence per capita, around one case per 100,000 people.
So far in 2024 there have been 31 confirmed cases, with the highest number being nine in South Australia.
