Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was honoured to attend a special lunch in Brisbane a few weeks ago to raise funds and awareness to fight meningococcal. The Brisbane event was organised by Kirsten McGinty, a local mother who, tragically, lost her 20-year-old daughter Zoe to meningococcal last September. Zoe developed no telltale rash or blotches. She went from being fit and healthy at breakfast to tragically dead just 16 hours later. What an amazingly strong woman Kirsten McGinty is. Her response to losing her beautiful daughter was to raise her hand and become the Queensland representative for Meningococcal Australia. Thanks to Kirsten's hard work and the support of so many great people around Brisbane, over $30,000 was raised at that event. That will go directly to raising awareness and education programs in nearly 3,000 schools.

The government has recently moved to strengthen the National Immunisation Program with a vaccine covering four of the five contagious strains of meningococcal. More remains to be done, including with respect to the B-strain vaccine, which the federal government has now committed to list if the application receives a positive recommendation from the experts at the PBAC. Keep up the good work, Kirsten. You're a hero. Thanks to the health minister for his excellent message of support at the event, finishing his remarks with Kirsten's catch phrase: 'Goforzo.'

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