Letitia Gallagher felt sick on Sunday and was dead from meningitis on Tuesday morning.

New Zealand finally has a vaccination for its most-common form of the killer meningococcal disease.

Pharmac confirmed on Wednesday that its clinical advisors recommended funding the universal vaccination for infants and high-risk groups with meningococcal B (MenB) vaccine Bexsero – but quite when or if it would come into effect remained to be seen.

But the drug's maker confirmed it was now available for purchase here.

Darryl Butler Mark and Lisa Gallagher lost their daughter Letitia to meningitis in 2012.

Meningitis Foundation director Andrea Brady was certain the arrival of Bexsero in New Zealand would save lives. Why it had taken so long for a vaccine to reach New Zealand was a question for the drug makers and the Government, she said.

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The Ministry of Health approved the use of Bexsero and the vaccine's maker, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has applied for Pharmac to fund it.

Supplied Letitia Gallagher died from meningicoccal B in 2012. Now her parents are warning others of the dangerous disease.

While Stuff was making inquiries about the vaccine on Wednesday, Pharmac's website updated to say it recommended funding Bexsero for all infants as well as high-risk groups. This had a medium priority, but quite when - or if - it would come into effect was not clear.

Meanwhile, GSK confirmed the vaccine could now be launched in New Zealand meaning it was available for purchase by all.

Brady said New Zealand had a targeted MenB vaccine after a mid-2000s outbreak in Northland, but nothing was available nationally.

Vaccinations for other strains – one specifically for the C strain, and a combined one for strains A, C, Y and W – were available, but only for those willing to pay, though it was funded for high-risk groups.

"The best way of preventing a disease is though vaccination," Brady said.

"One death is one death too many. We have had six deaths from meningococcal W in the past year."

MORNING REPORT/RNZ GPs and emergency departments are on extra alert for a once-rare strain of meningococcal disease that has killed six people in the past year.

For Levin's Mark Gallagher, spending $300 to get vaccines sent over from Australia for his teenage sons was a no-brainer. Losing a daughter to meningitis will do that.

It was Sunday, July 22, 2012, when his daughter Letitia, 18, and her boyfriend came for dinner with a temperature and flu-like symptoms.

The next day, the doctor did all the proper tests.

"The doctor called the next morning to see how she was doing. I had to tell her Tesh passed away."

On Monday night, after seeing the doctor, Letitia went to bed with a headache. By 3am she was incoherent and vomiting. Her flatmate called her parents at 4am.

By 5.30am they were at Palmerston North Hospital and it was 8.30am that doctors said there was nothing more they could do.

"It went straight to her brain."

Now Mark and Tesh's mother Lisa are taking some good from the bad.

Mark Gallagher knows that getting the Government to fully fund all meningococcal vaccines is a pipedream, but even partially funding would be a step forward.

And if only more people knew how many strains they needed to be vaccinated against it would be massive, he said.

The MenB vaccine needed to be released urgently, he said.

Letitia got a meningococcal vaccination at school – "we thought it covered everything" – but it did not cover the C strain that killed her.

Ministry of Health public health director Caroline McElnay said it had a contingency stock of about 100 doses of MenB vaccine which was there in case of an outbreak. It was obtained in 2017, before Bexsero was approved in New Zealand.

According to the Ministry, meningococcal disease was increasing with 112 cases last year and 96 this year, compared to 45 cases in 2014.The B strain was the most common, but the even deadlier W strain was on the rise.

GSK New Zealand general manager Anna Stove said the Pharmac recommendation was an important step towards putting the vaccine on the national immunisation schedule, but she could not speculate on when this would happen.