Hours after attending his work Christmas party, Brayden died of the one strain of meningococcal disease he was not vaccinated against

Brayden Chater was a fit and healthy 23-year-old when he died suddenly after a short battle with meningococcal disease in November 2022.

His cause of death was at first a mystery to doctors at Wollongong Hospital, 90 minutes south of Sydney, where he had been rushed by ambulance from his family home in Dapto.

"Brayden was just loved by everyone," his mother Stacey told 9honey.

"He was just the kind of person who could light up a room. He didn't have any enemies [or] dramas with anyone."

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Stacey said Brayden, who loved footy and fishing, first complained of feeling unwell after returning home from a touch football game on the night of November 17, 2022.

"He said, 'Oh, Mum, I am getting sick.' He just had a fever and was a bit achy," she recalled.

He took some paracetamol and went to bed. The next morning, the popular plumber picked up his work colleagues to head to their paintball-themed Christmas party.

He returned home that afternoon with a colleague to shower, and shared a joke with his dad Ralph and younger brother Harry before heading back out.

Stacey was out for dinner that night when she got a text from Brayden to say he was not well and heading home.

When she returned, Harry asked her to check on Brayden, who was making a strange noise. She walked in to find him on the bedroom floor suffering a seizure.

He was rushed by ambulance to hospital, with the couple driving close by.

"About halfway there, the ambulance put its lights and sirens on and screamed straight past us," Stacey said.

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Within an hour of arriving at the hospital, doctors told them Brayden was brain dead.

"It was horrific," Stacey recalled, "I still don't believe it."

Over the next 24 hours, a steady stream of more than 150 friends and family, including his older sister Shayne, said their goodbyes before his life support was switched off.

Several days later, Stacey received a call to say Brayden had meningococcal B.

"I said, 'He can't have, he has been vaccinated,'" Stacey said, "and they said, 'No he hasn't' and explained it to me."

Just like two-year-old Skylar Lawrence of Darwin, who lost her life in 2007 just hours after falling ill, Brayden had only been vaccinated against four other strains of the disease under the National Immunisation Program.

Meningococcal disease is a rare but potentially life-threatening illness caused by the Neisseria meningitidis bacteria.

Invasive meningococcal disease is the most serious form of the disease, with 10 per cent of patients dying, often within 24-48 hours of first showing symptoms.

It mainly affects children under the age of two, teenagers aged 15-19 and young adults like Brayden.

The National Immunisation Program offers a free vaccine that covers the A, C, W and Y meningococcal strains to babies over 12 months and teens aged 14-16.

A meningococcal B vaccine is available from six weeks but is only free to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children or those with a specified medical condition.

It can be accessed by the wider public via a private script, with children and teens needing two to three doses, depending on the age they start.

But many parents, such as the Chaters and the Lawrences, don't even know a second vaccine exists.

Less than one-in-10 vaccinated

Meningitis Centre Australia executive officer Karen Quick said a new survey conducted by Meningitis Centre Australia and supplied exclusively to 9honey found less than one in 10 children were being vaccinated against the meningococcal B strain.

The national survey of 8071 parents found only 7 per cent of parents had vaccinated their child or teen against the disease.

Of the parents surveyed, 87 per cent said they could not afford the cost.

Quick said it costs about $600 to vaccinate a baby and $400 for a teen when you factored in the cost of the vaccine and multiple trips to the doctor.

Two Australian states - Queensland and South Australia - offer their own free meningococcal B vaccination program, while the Northern Territory will roll out its version from January 1, 2025

Quick said 99 per cent of parents surveyed in the remaining states of NSW, Victoria, WA and Tasmania support a state-based vaccination program.

Brayden's legacy

After learning he had never been vaccinated against meningococcal B as a teen, Brayden's mother was at first "in disbelief."

"And then I was very, very angry," she said.

"I felt like the government had let us down. I just couldn't fathom why it wasn't covered."

Six months after Brayden's death, a "very emotional" Stacey travelled to Canberra where she spoke in front of about 20 people, including Federal Health Minister Mark Butler.

The death of 23-year-old Queensland woman Bella Fidler in eerily similar circumstances to Brayden and her family's successful lobbying to fund a meningococcal B vaccination program in that state led Stacey to turn her sights to the NSW government.

The family launched the "B the Change for Brayden" petition calling on the NSW government to fund its own meningococcal B immunisation program.

She spent two heart-wrenching days recounting Brayden's story over and over to about 20 NSW state MPs last year.

She said NSW Health Minister Ryan Park did not meet her that day because he was 'too busy.' She said he later agreed to a meeting, and told her he would ask the federal government to go halves.

But more than a year later, nothing has happened.

Mr Park told 9honey in a statement, "Like many other areas of healthcare, for which the federal government is responsible, the NSW Government is increasingly expected to shoulder the burden of numerous shortcomings in the federal health space, including primary care, aged care and the NDIS.

"I and my office remain in constant contact with the federal Health Minister, both formally as well as informally, on a range of issues, including on the matter of access to the meningococcal B vaccine.

"My heart goes out to Stacey, and we commend her advocacy, and I will continue to raise the issue with my federal colleagues."

But Stacey doesn't understand why "the lives of children in some states are more valuable than in other states."

She said without the vaccine, Brayden never stood a chance against the disease due to its vague flu-like symptoms – he never got the telltale rash – and speed in which it took his life.

"My family has been changed dramatically in ways you don't think about," she said.

"It is not just Brayden's life. It's his parents, his siblings, his grandparents, his aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, his friends, his co-workers. It's everyone who loved him."