More than 470k people sign Leeds dad's meningitis petition
A Leeds dad is hoping to get meningitis back on the agenda in parliament, after his petition reached more than 470,000 signatures.
A Leeds dad is hoping to get meningitis back on the agenda in parliament, after his petition reached more than 470,000 signatures.
Lee Booth wants to see the MenB vaccine offered free to all children rather than those aged two to five months old.
The campaign has now gone viral after a mum in Maidstone chose to release a heartbreaking photo of her two-year-old daughter Faye shortly before she died of the infection on Valentine's day.
In a statement, her mother said: "This is a photo of Faye, two years old, who sadly lost her life to this dreadful disease. We campaign for change in her memory.”
Lee started his petition a while ago when he realised his youngest child wouldn't get the vaccination, but told Radio Aire it went viral after the photograph of Faye was released:
"Hopefully when it gets debated in parliament, they're going to take notice and hopefully do something about it so that children outside of the currnet age group get immunised against this horrible virus.
"You're looking at about ÂŁ300 per child for the vaccinations you need to be fully immunised against it so for me personally that's around ÂŁ600.
"We just want to get it out there so that no more lives are lost basically.
"I don't want my children to be affected and when I found that my youngest wasn't going to get the vaccination I thought 'it's not right' and decided to do something about it."
Former England rugby player Matt Dawson has leant his backing to the campaign, saying his family went through "two weeks of hell" after his youngest son got meningitis.
The 43 year-old tweeted a series of pictures showing Sami covered in red marks and attached to wires and tubes in hospital.