Less than 12 hours after Charlie Ware’s school suggested his parents pick him up because he had a slight temperature, he was being bundled into an ambulance and rushed to hospital.

What the ambulance crew strongly suspected, but his parents, Alyce and Dan, didn’t realise at the time, was that five-year-old Charlie had contracted meningococcal B — a disease where every second counts.

“We got a message to say Charlie’s back was hurting at school,” Alyce said of that pivotal day in June last year.

“We then received a phone call at 12 to say he had a temp and was overall not doing too well.

“We picked him up from school and brought him home. We gave him Panadol for the fever and he was shaky on his legs. He slept on and off for a few hours.”

By around 11pm Charlie had a slight rash and was struggling to walk.

“His hands and feet were freezing,” his mum said. “We decided to call an ambulance straight away.”

The ambulance took 40 minutes to get to Munglinup, a town of fewer than 200 people about 110km west of Esperance. By 1am, he was at Esperance Hospital.

“Straight away they had drips in both Charlie’s hands and were treating him for the worst,” Alyce said.

“We spoke to the Perth doctors via a screen and this is when we found out we were being flown to Perth. It still didn’t sink in that it was meningococcal.”

The Royal Flying Doctor Service flew Charlie to Jandakot Airport, where he was met by intensive care specialists from Perth Children’s Hospital. By that time, a purple rash had spread all over Charlie’s tiny body.

“They placed more cannulas, an arterial line into his arm and a central line into his groin,” Alyce said. “He was cold and disoriented and didn’t know what was happening.”

As his blood pressure dropped and his condition deteriorated, doctors placed Charlie in an induced coma. He stayed that way — his worried parents by his side — for the next four days.

Tests confirmed Charlie had meningococcal B with septicaemia.

“During these four days all Dan and I could do was sit by his bedside and watch his monitors, praying his blood pressure would rise and stop dropping,” Alyce said.

More than 14 months after the terrifying ordeal that nearly killed him, Charlie still bears scars from the meningococcal rash but is otherwise a healthy, fun-loving seven-year-old.

“He is almost back to his cheeky, mischievous self and to look at him you cannot tell what he’s been through,” Alyce said.

“Their programs, outreach and advocacy and allowing stories like mine to reach other families is critical, so no other child or family goes through this, especially in remote WA,” she said.

Meningitis Centre Australia chief executive Karen Quick said Telethon’s support allows it to employ an outreach officer to speak directly to parents, to raise awareness about how to recognise and prevent potentially fatal diseases such as meningococcal, pneumococcal or meningitis.

“But also to let people know that vaccines are safe, they’re effective and they work,” she said.

Meningococcal is a vaccine-preventable disease that can cause brain damage, limb loss, severe scarring or death if untreated.

Charlie had been vaccinated against the A, C, W and Y strains. But the B strain is not on the free schedule for WA vaccines.

Ms Quick said Charlie’s story was helping to publicise the need for all WA kids to be able to access the MenB jab.

He had been lucky that his parents and ambulance crew had acted so quickly when they realised something wasn’t right.

“Following your instincts and knowing the signs and symptoms is so important when it’s a disease where every second counts,” she said. “Kids die from this within 24 hours, so you’ve got to be on the ball.”