Camille Moreau with AFP / Photo credits: LOIC VENANCE / AFP
A resumption of the circulation of whooping cough, a very contagious and sometimes serious disease, “has begun in France” since the beginning of the year, notes Public Health France, calling for vigilance and recalling the importance of vaccination . In Europe, 60,000 cases were recorded between 2023 and April 2024, ten times more than in 2022 and 2021.
Infants, the first victims
Whooping cough, a respiratory infection caused by bacteria, is transmitted very easily through the air, through contact with a sick person with a cough, mainly in the family or in communities.
It causes frequent and prolonged coughing fits, and can be serious for infants and vulnerable people (chronic respiratory patients, immunocompromised people, pregnant women). Deaths are rare but can occur particularly in very young, unvaccinated infants, as pediatrician Robert Cohen explains.
“This disease is extraordinarily dangerous in very small babies who have not yet had time to be vaccinated, that is to say before four months,” says the pediatrician.
Only one solution: vaccination of pregnant women
Whooping cough is ten times more contagious than the flu. If it causes violent coughing fits, it can also cause other symptoms such as bluish skin and slightly reddened eyes. To protect infants, there is only one solution: vaccination, especially for pregnant women. “Today, in an epidemic period, we must vaccinate pregnant women between the second and third trimester of pregnancy, because they are the ones who will protect their little baby by giving them their antibodies,” indicates Robert Cohen.
The whooping cough vaccine is 90% effective. It is therefore possible to get sick even when vaccinated but don’t worry, to cure, there is also an antibiotic.