Bella Fidler: Law graduate dies from bacterial infection days after return from girls trip to Bali
GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA: A law graduate returned from a post-exam celebration holiday to Bali only to die within a week after having contracted meningococcal B, which can cause deadly bacterial meningitis. Bella Fidler, 23, from Gold Coast had a temperature after coming home from the girls' trip in December last year and told her parents that she did not feel "right".
"Bella walked into hospital in the early hours of the morning with flu-like symptoms, which she thought might have been Covid," her parents Blair and Jodie Fidler told Meningitis Centre Australia. "Once there, she rapidly became critically ill, and the doctors eventually diagnosed her with bacterial meningitis. Within hours our lives were shattered by the devastating news that Bella had suffered extensive brain damage and was not expected to survive."
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Bella suffered a seizure
Bella's parents never got to know from where she caught it as the young woman who had plenty to look for in the future, breathed her last within 24 hours after she felt ill. Bella's flu-like symptoms rapidly deteriorated to the point she suffered a seizure before going into cardiac arrest. Doctors were unable to prevent her from suffering irrecoverable brain damage.
Bella's parents were initially confused
Bella's parents could not understand how she could have come down with meningitis when she had been vaccinated against meningococcal in high school, like most Australian children. "We later found out that the national immunisation program schedule does not include the deadly meningococcal B strain, although a vaccine for the B strain is available if you know about it and can afford to pay for it," her parents explained.
The devastated parents are now campaigning for vaccinations against the B strain, which cost $200 for two doses, to be included in the state-funded immunization drive. "As is the case for many other people who contract meningococcal, by the time a diagnosis is made, it's too late to avoid serious neurological damage, loss of limbs or death," they said. "The only effective prevention for these tragic outcomes is vaccination."
Most young Australians remain vulnerable to getting exposed to the disease as only South Australia includes meningococcal B in its vaccination program. Fidler's parents claim that meningococcal B is now the most prevalent strain in Australia.
How does the disease spread?
It is spread through close, prolonged contact, including kissing, sneezing or sharing drinks or food. According to Meningitis Centre Australia, the bacteria can spread into the bloodstream causing illness in small number of cases, with about 10 percent of cases being fatal. Just under 400 people died from meningococcal disease between 1997 and 2016, with 32 percent under five years old.
Bella's parents sponsor the $500 Arabella (Bella) Fidler Memorial Prize in International Human Rights Law at Griffith University where she studied. "Her passions were human and animal rights, and 2023 was going to be her year to start making the impact on the world she always dreamt of," her parents said according to Daily Mail. "Tragically, Bella never got to attend her graduation or see Christmas 2022, and these dreams will never be realised. There were so many more of life's milestones yet to come, that she will now never get to experience or share with her family and friends."
Her parents described her "the loyalest of friends who stuck by people through the tough times and the happy times; she was always there for them no matter what". "Bella could light up a room with her smile and her big blue eyes, and she was funny and goofy and classy, all at the same time," they said.