City doctor calls for whooping cough jag in bid to save lives

Published on Friday 28 November 2008 09:04

A LEADING Edinburgh consultant has called for parents with newborn babies to be given booster vaccinations to prevent them passing on potentially fatal whooping cough.

Ulf Theilen, who works in the Sick Kids paediatric intensive care unit, made the call as cases of the condition among adults are on the rise.

Infants are vaccinated against whooping cough at the age of between two and four months, meaning they are at risk beforehand of contracting it from someone else in the household. While an adult can fight it off with relative ease, for a month-old baby it can prove deadly. Dr Theilen said that it was still a rare occurrence, with only two deaths at the Sick Kids in the last few years because of whooping cough.

But he used them as case studies in an article for the British Medical Journal stating that, had the family been given a booster vaccination, they would not have found themselves in that position.

But he said it was time for the UK to come into line with other western countries and vaccinate mothers either just before or just after birth, as well as anyone else living in the household.

He said: "Children that come in to us have an extremely good chance of survival, at about 95 per cent.

"But that is in stark contrast with this condition, where there is very little we can do for a child with that. It is very frustrating at this end. People try very hard to prevent it beforehand. They get infected, especially from members of the household, and we do not have an answer to this."

One reason for the concern is the type of whooping cough – or pertussis – Dr Theilen is talking about is far more invasive and aggressive than the type many of today's adults will have experienced.

In the US and Australia, a booster vaccination has already been introduced for adults and adolescents, while France and Germany have similar initiatives.

It is too early in the process to prove such methods will work, Dr Theilen acknowledged, but this was widely considered to be the best way to conquer the disease.

"The purpose of this paper is to point out that if a young baby comes to us with this infection in full swing it is very hard for us."

Last year, in Scotland, there were 91 cases of whooping cough, and already this year there have been 117 across all age groups.