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A worrying resurgence. Health authorities and doctors are calling for vigilance after the death of an infant from whooping cough a few days ago at the Lenval University Hospital in Nicewhere two babies under three months old are still hospitalized after contracting the disease.
“Protect children: vaccinate yourself against whooping cough,” urge the emergency doctors who took care of the infants. So, where is the disease in France? And who is affected by the vaccination ? 20 Minutes explains.
Around twenty clusters identified in 2024
A few days ago, four infants infected with whooping cough were hospitalized at the Lenval University Hospital in Nice. The four babies, all aged less than three months, were admitted to the intensive care unit, but the youngest of them, barely three weeks old, succumbed to the disease after developing a severe form, indicate our colleagues from Nice morning. Only one of the infants was able to be discharged, and the other two, still hospitalized, are now out of danger.
Contaminations which are in line with the data recorded by Public health France which, in a report published on April 18, indicates a “resumption of the circulation of whooping cough which has increased in recent months in mainland France”. The health agency thus identified “in the first quarter of 2024, around fifteen clusters, mainly in communities (nursery schools, primary schools, daycare centers and nursery homes) but also in families, totaling 70 cases were reported to Public Health France”.
Figures which worry, while “the multiplication of the number of cases compared to 2023 and the sharp increase in grouped cases indicate a resumption of the circulation of the bacteria in the community which could intensify in the coming months, warns Santé public France. Vigilance remains essential, with the need to increase public awareness of this disease and its methods of prevention.”
The urgency of vaccination to protect infants
In this context, where ten children have been hospitalized for whooping cough since the start of the year, health professionals are calling for vaccination, in a press release published this Monday: “Protect children: vaccinate yourself against whooping cough”, urge the emergency doctors at the CHU-Lenval pediatric hospitals, who took care of the infants. “Whooping cough is a bacterial respiratory infection that causes coughing fits which, if left untreated, can continue for several weeks,” recalls health insurance. But in certain fragile people, the disease can sometimes become serious, particularly for pregnant women and infants under six months old.” However, “whooping cough is particularly contagious: 1 infected person transmits the disease to 15 other people on average”, underlines the Pasteur Institute.
To date, the vaccination of babies “is OBLIGATORY for children born since 2018, recalls the Ministry of Health, as soon as they are old enough to be vaccinated, that is to say the age of two months. This vaccination consists of the administration at the ages of 2 months, 4 months and 11 months of a vaccine protecting against six diseases: whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, Haemophilus influenzae type B, as well as hepatitis B”.
But “infants, even if they are vaccinated, are not protected before the age of six months,” insisted Dr. Philippe Babe, head of the Lenval Emergency Department, and Dr. Olivier Haas, pediatric infectious disease specialist, in Nice. -Morning. We therefore call on the population, and in particular people around vulnerable people, to check that they have benefited from the booster, or to be vaccinated for the first time, if they have never been vaccinated.
Vaccination not compulsory for everyone
Because if vaccination of infants is compulsory, it is not for the rest of the population. It is therefore only recommended for “pregnant women from the second trimester of pregnancy, favoring the period from the 5th to the 8th month of pregnancy”, specifies the Ministry of Health, which recalls that “the best way to reduce the risk of whooping cough in a young infant who is not yet protected by its own vaccination is to vaccinate your mother during pregnancy. She can thus develop protective antibodies for herself, which will be transferred to the fetus through the placenta: the newborn will therefore be protected from birth and during the first months of his life by his mother’s antibodies.
A vaccination which “must be repeated at each pregnancy, even for women who were vaccinated shortly before or during a previous pregnancy”. And “when the mother was not vaccinated during pregnancy, or was vaccinated less than a month before delivery, vaccination of people close to the infant” is also recommended by the health authorities, and “must be carried out no later than the birth of the child”, according to the so-called “cocooning” strategy.
These are essential recommendations, since “the current challenge is to avoid cases of whooping cough in infants under 6 months of age, those most at risk of serious whooping cough,” insists the ministry. These infants are most often contaminated by an adult close to them, one of the parents in 50% of cases.”
