HE is a father who is on a mission to save children's lives.

And he believes that the harder he works, the more children will be saved from the clutches of a deadly disease.

Meet Australian Bruce Langoulant (above), a global campaigner who raises awareness on the dangers of meningitis.

He wants parents to learn from him because his second daughter is handicapped after she was struck by the illness almost 20 years ago.

Things were rosy for the family until December 1989 when the girl, then only six months old, fell ill suddenly. She survived.

Ashleigh, now 18, has never walked, or talked.

Mr Langoulant told The New Paper that it's something he does not want other parents to go through.

'Right now, it is still a tragedy that is being repeated every day,' he said.

He was in Singapore recently to share his experiences with a group of parents whose children were also struck by the often devastating illness caused by the common bacterium, the pneumococcus.

They are part of a newly formed group here called Friends Against Pneumococcal Disease (FAPD).

Ashleigh had pneumococcal meningitis, one of the four types of illnesses caused by the pneumococcus.

Such bacteria can cause pneumonia, blood infection, meningitis and also ear and nose complications.

Mr Langoulant now travels the world as the president of the Confederation of Meningitis Organisation, hoping to persuade both authorities and parents of the urgency to put the vaccine against the disease on the schedule of compulsory vaccinations for children.

Largely because of his efforts, it became a part of the schedule of vaccinations for infants in Australia in 2006. It is also on the schedule of vaccinations in Canada and the US.

It's not yet on the schedule here.

According to Dr Chong Chia Yin, senior consultant in infectious diseases at KK Women's and Children's Hospital, in Singapore, 13.6 per 100,000 children under 5 years old become infected with invasive PD each year.

One in four of these children experience complications and one in 16 of them lose their fight against the disease.

It is estimated that it can strike any of the 400,000 children under 10 years old in Singapore.

700,000 deaths

At a World Health Organisation meeting in Kuala Lumpur in March 2006, it was reported that more than 700,000 children die globally each year from complications related to PD.

Mr Langoulant says immunisation is the only way to protect the children.

Associate Professor Daniel Goh, president of the Singapore Paediatric Society, agrees. 'We need to help parents and caregivers understand the importance of disease prevention through immunisation.'

The illness strikes suddenly and can kill or severely handicap a child in a matter of hours.

Mr Langoulant should know.

He said: 'The doctor said he was pretty sure she (Ashleigh) had meningitis. I had sort of heard of it but had no idea how serious it was.'

By the time she left the hospital some weeks later, Ashleigh was both blind and deaf, he said.

Said Mr Langoulant: 'Doctors then could not say if these problems would be permanent. So far, they have turned out to be.'

This story was first published in The New Paper on Sept 1, 2008.

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