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Whooping cough is one of those diseases that likes to come back, despite the fact that you can get vaccinated against it. The problem is, we don’t do it, believing that pertussis vaccination only applies to children. The consequences can be dire, because we are on the eve of another epidemic of whooping cough – a disease that causes serious complications, which can even be fatal.
- Whooping cough outbreaks regularly occur every four to five years. The last one should have occurred in early 2020, but it was “overtaken” by the COVID-19 pandemic
- One person with whooping cough can infect between 12 and 17 people. For comparison, a person suffering from the flu infects about four people around him
- Its infectivity is comparable only to measles and Omicron
- Pertussis vaccination should be repeated every 10 years. It is compulsory for children and adolescents, but practically non-existent in the minds of adults – only 3% of them are behind them. Poles
- The diagnosis of whooping cough is also limp – doctors confuse its symptoms with a cold, and in chronic cough they look for, for example, allergies.
- Prof. Aneta Nitsch-Osuch, pediatrician, epidemiologist: – In adults, the diagnostic underestimation may be as high as 300%.
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
Whooping cough – what is it?
Whooping cough, formerly called whooping cough, is an infectious disease caused by infection with bacteria Bordatella pertussis (pertussis stick). It produces antigens and toxins, the most dangerous of which is pertussis toxin.
It spreads by droplets, and the easiest way to get infected with it is during contact with a sick person who is in the early, catarrhal stage of the disease. It is estimated that 12–17 people with whooping cough are able to infect 80–XNUMX people, while we infect “only” four people with the flu at a time. The probability that we will pass the bacterium on to family members is as high as XNUMX%. This makes whooping cough more contagious than chicken pox, mumps, rubella or the flu. Its infectivity is comparable only to measles and Omicron.
- Also read: Will measles come back to Poland? In a pandemic, we lost population immunity
The main symptom of whooping cough is a paroxysmal “crowing” cough (doctors even call it “rooster crowing”), often provoking a gag reflex and vomiting itself. Although this cough is very characteristic, it is very difficult to diagnose the disease – by both the patient and the doctor – because it does not appear until the second stage of the disease.
Whooping cough initially gives symptoms typical of a cold, i.e. general fatigue and deterioration of well-being, mild rhinitis, low-grade fever. If a cough occurs at this stage, it is rather minor. Therefore, patients tend to function normally in society, and this is a huge mistake because they are the most contagious then.
The cough develops as the disease progresses. About two weeks after the infection, it is paroxysmal, tiring, making it difficult to sleep, and even make everyday functioning difficult. It often leads to a gag reflex and vomiting. It can last for a very long time, even over 10 weeks, which is why it is sometimes called a well cough. Patients rate their discomfort on a scale of one to 10 at eight and higher.
The complications of whooping cough are even more serious: fainting, seizures, sleep disturbances, weight loss, but also eye rupture, pneumothorax, inguinal hernia, encephalopathy and aneurysm rupture. Complications are more common in young children and the elderly, but they also occur in young and prime adults.
Treatment of whooping cough is based on antibiotics. The pharmacological agents of choice are macrolides (clarithromycin, azithromycin) and co-trimoxazole in people who cannot take such substances.
The rest of the text below the video.
How many people get whooping cough in Poland?
Whooping cough by the World Health Organization (WHO) is included in the so-called recurring diseases. This means that despite the fact that we know their etiology, we know how to treat, and above all how to protect against it, they still cause epidemiological problems.
In fact, whooping cough epidemics repeat cyclically at intervals of four or five years. The last one should come in early 2020, but then the SARS-CoV-2 virus appearedwhich made interpersonal contacts, and thus the main route of infection with whooping cough, significantly weakened.
This is clearly visible on the whooping cough incidence chart in our country over the last two decades. In 1999, there were 876 cases of whooping cough, and a year later 2269. An even bigger jump was recorded between 2011 and 2012, when we jumped from 1667 infections to 4683 cases. The worst was in 2016, when 6856 cases of whooping cough were reported. There were “only” 2020 cases of whooping cough in 743, but this was the first year of the pandemic silencing many other pathogens, including the influenza virus and pertussis.
- See also: Forgotten diseases are coming back to Poland. The doctor warns: epidemics are ahead
The whooping cough epidemic is only a matter of time
The fact that the bacteria had no “room for maneuver” does not mean that they disappeared from our environment. Like many pathogens, it “waited” dormant for better times when we begin to meet more and thus have more opportunities to pass microbes to each other. Whooping cough is striking again and the “postponed” epidemic is soon to come, as both doctors and epidemiologists argue.
The epidemiological situation regarding whooping cough has long been deteriorating (the process has been visible since the 80s), not only in Poland, but also in many developed countries, such as the USA, Australia and Japan. During the press conference organized by the My Patients Foundation, prof. Aneta Nitsch-Osuch, a pediatrician, epidemiologist, public health specialist from the Medical University of Warsaw, indicated the reasons why this is so.
– This is due to the fact that after pertussis vaccinations, which are carried out as part of the compulsory vaccination schedule in children and adolescents, vaccination immunity does not last for life, but persists for 5-10 years. This fact implies the need to administer doses that remind adults, recommended every 10 years, said the expert.
As she pointed out, among the reasons for the increase in whooping cough incidence, especially in adults, may also be: changes in the epidemiological surveillance system, a decrease in the percentage of vaccinated people, more accurate laboratory diagnosis of infections or the emergence of antigenically different strains from vaccine strains.
- What happens when an adult gets measles, smallpox, rubella, mumps?
The diagnosis of whooping cough in Poland is limping
According to the data of the National Institute of Public Health – National Research Institute, from the beginning of this year to March 15, 26 cases of whooping cough were detected (compared to 180 in the previous year). However, this should not be cause for optimism. According to prof. Nitsch-Osuch, the data is greatly underestimated. According to conservative estimates, it may be as high as 300%. This means that most people with whooping cough have no idea they have or have had it.
– We doctors do not always think of whooping cough when examining a patient with a chronic cough lasting more than two weeks. We most often look for etiology in allergic diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or we think the patient has caught a chronic infection – explained during the conference Dr. Dagmara Pokorna-Kałwak, specialist in family medicine and paediatrics from the Medical University of Wrocław.
Experts pointed out that it is still lingering that whooping cough is a childhood disease. It used to be, in fact, mostly children up to 5 years old, but now more than half of those with whooping cough are over 15 years of age. Even infants and newborns are infected, and almost always the source of the infection is their parents, older siblings or grandparents.
- Also check: Infectious diseases of childhood in adults
How to protect yourself from whooping cough?
Effective protection against whooping cough comes down to one thing only: vaccination. – For us to permanently improve the epidemiological situation, it is not enough to vaccinate children and adolescents. We have to add to this the vaccinations of adults, repeated every 10 years – appeals prof. Nitsch-Osuch
Will Poles listen to experts? The Kantar study from 2021 leaves no illusions: it will be very difficult to do, because the awareness of whooping cough is very low.
According to the research agency, only half of us have heard of vaccinations, and even fewer (a quarter) that there is such a thing as a vaccination schedule recommended for adults. 75 percent knows about whooping cough, but only every third person that this disease also affects adultsand only 4% that it is associated with very serious complications. In addition, only about 39 percent. declared that she did not perform any vaccinations in her adult life, although this result must be corrected: the study was carried out before the vaccination campaign against COVID-19.
There is one more terrifying result. Kantar’s analysis showed that in 2021, only 3 percent were vaccinated against whooping cough. adult Poles. This means that millions of us could catch whooping cough at any time and expose ourselves and our loved ones to a long and debilitating disease.
- Read also: The doctor warns: almost the entire population of Poland has no immunity to whooping cough
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