Whooping cough death sparks vaccination plea
Updated
Parents are being urged to vaccinate their children against whooping cough after the death of a five-week-old baby in South Australia.
It is the fourth whooping cough death in Australia in the past 18 months.
Newborns are particularly at risk and health experts want more adults to be vaccinated to stem the spread.
South Australia's chief medical officer Professor Paddy Phillips says vaccination is the best prevention.
"It is awful to hear about a death like this, but it is very distressing for the baby and for the families to see a child coughing and then vomiting, going blue and the distress that that causes," he said.
"It is not like measles or one of those other things that the vaccine protects you fully for the whole of your life.
"Immunity tends to wane over time and that is why a booster is so important for people who are dealing regularly with children."
Many thousands of whooping cough cases are reported to health authorities every year, but deaths are rare.
Professor Robert Booy, an infectious disease expert from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance in Sydney, says on average one baby dies from whooping cough in Australia each year.
Last year three babies died.
Whooping cough vaccinations are staggered over a child's life, starting at two months up until age 15, but Professor Booy wants vaccinations to start earlier.
A national trial has begun in four states to test a whooping cough vaccine on five-day-old babies. About 100 babies are taking part and results should be released next year.
"This is exciting research. If their preliminary results suggest that it might be beneficial the big study has to be done," Professor Booy said.
"With these new vaccines we are trying to find out whether what we discovered 50 years ago can be replaced by a vaccine that starts within a few days of birth rather than two months from birth."
Professor Booy also wants more adults to get vaccinated, launching an online campaign to raise awareness.
"We know 40 per cent of cases are passed from older children to babies. Forty per cent of babies who get disease get it from their parents and then 20 per cent get it from outside the family, perhaps the carer," he said.
"There are ways through cocooning that we can protect these really vulnerable babies."
Topics: vaccines-and-immunity, health, child-health-and-behaviour, infant-health, sa, australia
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