Authorities are advising Australians to keep up to date with their whooping cough vaccinations, cautioning an outburst of the infectious respiratory disease could be on the way.
The last epidemic of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, peaked in late 2015 with 22,570 established cases. But transferrable diseases professionals caution the epidemic tends to occur every three to five years, denotation a major outbreak affecting infants, children and adults alike is “well overdue”.
Robert Booy University of Sydney Professor advised we could see a resurrection of whooping cough in the spring and summer months, when infections tend to spike. While respiratory infections such as influenza and RSV have lately increased to pre-pandemic levels, we have not yet seen this with whooping cough, Professor Booy informed.
Whooping cough tails a fairly expectable pattern and it’s very much the slumbering bear of respiratory infectious disease right now. We have seen years when whooping cough infections in Australia have reached 40,000, so we must be attentive to signs of a pending epidemic.
Identified as the “100-day cough”, whooping cough is an extremely contagious bacterial infection that attacks the airways, triggering overpowering coughing and difficulty breathing. The coughing spasms can be so severe that they cause incontinence, vomiting, broken ribs and hospitalization.
Whooping cough is more infectious than measles, influenza or COVID-19 and, once detected, an individual can remain infectious for three weeks or till they complete a course of antibiotics. As indications of whooping cough do not appear instantly (often for a week or two following infection), the bacteria can be easily transferred.
Asthma sufferers are at four times greater in danger of contamination and higher risk of being admitted to hospital.
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Booy stated, individuals with a continuing cough should exercise social distancing and seek instant medical guidance. Increased levels of mixing and travel during the festive period facilitate the spread of airborne bacteria like whooping cough, so caution is advised, he said.
Adults need a booster shot at minimum every 10 years to stay up to date with whooping cough defense, but study shows 80% of Australian adults cannot remembrance getting a booster. The Immunization Foundation of Australia (IFA) today launched the introductory Whooping Cough Day to inspire all Australians to remain up to date with vaccination.
IFA organizer Catherine Hughes, who sadly lost her four-week-old son to whooping cough in 2015, said there is still room for enhancement when it comes to reducing the spread of the sickness in the community. Most people link whooping cough with infants, but more than half of all cases are seen in adults, Hughes said.
Whooping cough can be deadly in infants and can cause serious infection in older children and adults. It’s easy to check your immunization position against whooping cough and organize a booster, and it’s up to all of us to defend ourselves and our loved ones against whooping cough, Hughes informed.
Australians can check their immunization position by talking to a doctor, pharmacist or by retrieving their Immunization History Statement via the Medicare app. The whooping cough combination vaccine is free under the National Immunization Program(NIP).
