Whooping cough in Hai Duong tends to increase

According to the provincial Center for Disease Control, Hai Duong has just recorded 3 more children with whooping cough in Thanh Khe (Thanh Ha), Ngu Hung (Thanh Mien) and Pham Tran (Gia Loc) communes. These children are between 11 months and 4 years old, and have all been fully vaccinated with basic vaccines containing whooping cough components. Currently, the health status of the 3 children is stable.

Thus, since the beginning of the year, Hai Duong has had 41 cases of whooping cough, while in the same period last year there were no cases.

This year, Hai Duong Children's Hospital tested for whooping cough at the hospital, so the number of recorded whooping cough cases increased compared to previous years. Previously, suspected cases were sampled and sent for testing at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

According to experts, whooping cough tends to increase this year. The reason may be that some children are not fully vaccinated and on schedule, which reduces the ability to prevent the disease in the community. Along with that, protective immunity against whooping cough in women, especially pregnant women, tends to decrease. This leads to a decrease in the passive transmission of antibodies from mother to child, which helps protect children in the first 2 months of life when they have not been vaccinated. Adults who carry the whooping cough virus but do not develop the disease, come into contact with newborns through care and transmission, causing children to become infected with the virus and develop the disease.

According to recommendations, vaccination is the most effective measure to prevent whooping cough. Families should proactively vaccinate children from 2 months of age and older with the full whooping cough vaccine on schedule. Pregnant women should also be vaccinated with a combination vaccine of 3 components: diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus, helping to transfer antibodies to their children in the first months of life (when they are not old enough to be vaccinated against whooping cough).

Whooping cough is an acute respiratory infection that usually occurs in young children. The disease may start with no fever or a low fever, with inflammation of the upper respiratory tract, fatigue, loss of appetite and cough. The cough becomes more severe and becomes paroxysmal in 1-2 weeks, lasting 1-2 months or longer.

Due to the severity of the disease, whooping cough is one of the diseases that was included in the expanded immunization program the earliest (about 30 years ago), thanks to which the incidence rate has been controlled. However, not only in Hai Duong but also the whole country has recorded an increase in whooping cough cases, concentrated in some provinces and cities in the Northern region such as Hanoi, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa, Yen Bai, Nam Dinh, Phu Tho, Vinh Phuc... The disease mainly appears in children who are not old enough to be vaccinated or have not received the full number of doses of vaccine to prevent the disease.