A MUM recalled how she almost lost her baby daughter to meningitis as she backed a campaign for more NHS vaccinations against the killer disease.

Carli Grigg’s daughter Khiara, now six, contracted the meningococcal septicaemia B virus - the same strain which claimed the life of Maidstone toddler Faye Burdett, two, on Valentine’s Day.

Photos of stricken Faye with severe blood poisoning, and connected to hospital machines were posted on social media and led to 580,500 people signing a petition on the UK parliament e-petitions website calling for the NHS to vaccinate all children up to the age of 11 against meningitis.

She said Faye’s death had brought back painful memories of the fateful day, January 24, 2011, when her then one-year-old daughter went down with the deadly virus.

Miss Grigg, 31, recalled initially took her to Basildon Hospital because she had a high temperature and was sweating and vomiting.

After a five-hour wait to be seen, Khiara became distressed so her mother took her home, but then discovered she had a purple dotty rash on her arm which did not fade when it was pressed by a glass - a sign of meningitis.

So she rushed Khiara back to Basildon Hospital where staff initially thought she had thrush before eventually diagnosing her with meningococcal septicaemia B after her mother had cried ‘somebody help me, my daughter’s ill.’ She was transferred to St Mary’s Hospital in London for treatment before returning to Basildon hospital where she had to learn to sit up and walk again.

She is now clear of the infection and has been vaccinated against meningitis at a private clinic, but her mother said the outcome could have been far worse.

Miss Grigg, who lives in Chesham Drive, Laindon, with her partner Ishak Bayraktar, 41 and also has a seven-year-old son Kaysen, added: “I came close to losing Khiara so I can only imagine how Faye’s parents must feel.

“Hopefully, the petition has highlighted the vaccination issue and brought it back into the public eye and hopefully something can be done because there are still too many cases of it. I see so many and it is heart breaking so if a vaccine could stop it then it should be rolled out.”

Currently the NHS vaccination programme only covers children, aged between two and five months, but Miss Grigg said she believed the programme was not being extended simply for financial reasons, but the price of potentially losing a child’s life was far greater.

She said: “I still feel the same way I did when Khiara was ill. It should be free for all children. There are still too many cases where children are dying.

“It is a disease that devastates so many lives and if that vaccine had been available to that little girl Faye it could have saved her life.

“It is frustrating because the vaccine is available privately, but many parents can not afford that.”