People in the Northern Territory have been urged to get vaccines after the death of a woman from meningococcal disease.
The woman presented at the Royal Darwin Hospital on the night of New Years Eve and died less than 24 hours later.
She was aged in her 30s.
Director for the Centre for Disease Control Dr Vicki Krause said it was not yet known what strain the woman suffered from.
A quadrivalent vaccine was available for the A,C,W and Y strains of the disease, which was free to people 19 years and under but available to everyone and a separate vaccine was available for the B strain.
"Young adults tend to transmit the bacteria more commonly and it is more widespread so it is very important this group gets vaccinated, it doesn't help for the vaccine to be in refrigerators, it needs to be in people's arms," Dr Krause told reporters.
"Meningococcal disease can attack healthy people, so a person can be totally healthy one day and 24 hours later, as we've witnessed here, can be dead."
It was therefore crucial that people who might have the disease and been exposed to someone with it to get to a doctor as quickly as possible to get the appropriate antibiotics, Dr Krause said.
Meningococcal disease was fatal in 5-10 per cent of cases.
A woman and a child died in separate cases last year after contracting the 'W' and 'B' meningococcal strains.
The most common symptoms are septicaemia or "blood poisoning" or meningitis and the associated unwell feelings such as a fever, aches, headaches, stiff necks and vomiting while the current Top End flu season increased risk.
There were 10 cases in the NT last year and 32 in 2017 due to an outbreak in central Australia but the trend before that was only one to four cases a year.
