A young adult is in a critical condition on life support in hospital after being diagnosed with invasive meningococcal disease.<\/p>\n
SA Health has traced multiple close contacts of the patient, who is in an Adelaide hospital, and seven people are receiving antibiotics to prevent further transmission.<\/p>\n
Meningococcal B is the most prevalent strain of the disease in Australia, responsible for at least 80 per cent of cases in 2022, 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n The disease kills between five and 10 per cent of patients and leaves another 10 to 20 per cent with brain damage, hearing loss or a learning disability.<\/p>\n There have been 22 cases of meningococcal disease in South Australia in 2026, compared to 15 in 2025.<\/p>\n Twenty cases involved the B strain, compared to 13 in 2025.<\/p>\n SA Health Minister Blair Boyer urged the public to \u201cprotect our loved ones by taking advantage of vaccinations\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to just remember that this can be fatal,\u201d he said on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201dI think sometimes there can be a tendency for us to get a bit blase about things like this because we think they might be a problem of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Symptoms and signs of the disease can include headache, fever, vomiting, neck stiffness and discomfort when looking at lights.<\/p>\n A skin rash may occur, with tiny red or purple spots that soon spread and enlarge to look like fresh bruises.<\/p>\n Young children may be fretful, difficult to wake and refuse to eat. They can also have leg pain, cold hands and feet, and a high-pitched or moaning cry. Others may develop pale, blotchy or abnormally coloured skin.<\/p>\n A vaccine for meningococcal A, C, W, and Y strains is free under Australia\u2019s national immunisation program for all children and young people.<\/p>\n Under the program, meningococcal B immunisations are only free for Indigenous children under one and Indigenous and non-Indigenous children two and under with medical conditions.<\/p>\n Babies and teens in the Northern Territory, SA and Queensland are covered under state-based regimes but parents in other jurisdictions are left $110 to $150 out of pocket per dose.<\/p>\n SA Health said vaccinated people should still remain alert to symptoms because vaccines do not protect against all types of the disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young adult is in a critical condition on life support in hospital after being diagnosed with invasive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137,6213],"class_list":["post-947511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}