Meningitis: 'It's like something from a horror film'

Tilly Lockey from Consett, County Durham, was 15 months old when she contracted meningitis B, in 2007.

Within hours of falling ill she developed the trade-mark purple bruises caused by blood poisoning and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance.

Her mother Sarah says that for four days they didn't know if she would live or die.

Tilly, now seven, did survive but lost both her hands and most of her toes from the effects of the septicaemia.

Speaking to the BBC, Sarah Lockey described the horror and pain of watching her child as she was devastated by the disease, and of the need for an effective vaccine.