People of all ages can get whooping cough, but it is most dangerous for small babies.
Small babies are in the risk group for whooping cough, because their vaccination protection is still incomplete. Adobe Stock / AOP
Whooping cough has been on the move at least in the Helsinki region and in Finland proper, while the cases of whooping cough have increased throughout Europe.
Anyone can get whooping cough, but babies under the age of six months are in a special risk group and at risk of serious disease.
– They don’t have vaccine protection, because vaccinations don’t start until they are 3 months old, says the children’s infectious disease doctor Tea Nieminen From the new children’s hospital.
A child with whooping cough is always hospitalized for follow-up. Hospitalization usually lasts a couple of weeks.
For a small baby, the infection can even be life-threatening, when the child has difficulty breathing during a coughing fit.
Whooping cough can also be accompanied by respiratory arrest in the baby, as a result of which the child’s skin may turn bluish.
– For this reason, small babies with strong coughing spells should be taken to health care to assess the situation. This also applies to infants under the age of one, who for some reason have not yet received two pertussis vaccines, advises the chief physician of Helsinki’s epidemiological operations Sanna Isosomppi.
According to Nieminen, increased cases of whooping cough have not been seen in specialized medical care so far. No babies with whooping cough were treated at the New Children’s Hospital last winter.
This is how a child is cared for
Whooping cough is a disease caused by bacteria, so it can be treated with antibiotics if the disease is detected early enough.
– Prolonged cough is caused by toxins produced by bacteria and there is no specific treatment for it. The baby’s symptoms can be alleviated with an antibiotic started in time. In addition, the treatment given is symptomatic, says Nieminen.
If necessary, the small patient is given supplemental oxygen or other breathing support, and care is taken to ensure that he receives sufficient nutrition. The child is sedated during coughing spells.
– You have to be in the hospital just because the parents can sleep, when you can monitor the baby’s breathing and other conditions in the hospital. A nurse can take care of a child with coughing fits at night.
The child receives a variety of treatments in the hospital, and the parents get the rest they need. Adobe Stock / AOP
Even the vaccinated can get sick
In the national vaccination program, the pertussis vaccine is given to 3-month, 5-month and 12-month-olds, 4-year-olds, 14-15-year-olds and 25-year-olds.
Vaccination protection fades in about five years.
– Kindergarten-aged children have fairly good protection, but perhaps by the age of 10, the protection starts to wane before the 14-15-year-old boost, Nieminen says.
It is precisely in the age group of elementary school students that the most infections have now been observed.
Even a vaccinated child or adult can get whooping cough. In healthy adults, the disease picture of whooping cough is usually mild.
– If the vaccinations are in order, then the disease is milder. I encourage everyone to take care that all vaccines according to the national vaccination program have been taken, says Isosomppi.
In small babies, whooping cough is usually found in 10−20 children in Finland each year. There are hundreds of cases of whooping cough in older children and adults, and not everyone goes to the doctor because of the symptoms.
Whooping cough is treated with antibiotics if the symptoms have lasted less than a month. Antibiotic treatment alleviates the symptoms and prevents the disease from being transmitted to others and thereby the spread of whooping cough. A person with whooping cough is contagious from the moment the symptoms begin.
With antibiotic treatment, the contagiousness ends five days after starting the medication. Even without antibiotic treatment, those who cough for more than three weeks no longer get the disease.
Since it is a controlled infectious disease, the medication prescribed by public healthcare is free of charge for the patient.
The effectiveness of vaccines is not perfect, so even a vaccinated child or adult can get whooping cough. Adobe Stock / AOP
After a quiet life
According to Tea Nieminen, whooping cough cases increase every few years as small epidemics and spread precisely in the age group where protection is weakest and the chances of infection are favorable. Whooping cough is easily spread as a droplet infection.
– During the corona years, whooping cough was not seen much. Now, an increase in the number of cases has been reported in several countries.
According to Isosomp, it is possible that cases will increase with travel.
– Whooping cough is an infectious disease that needs to be monitored, and for this reason the epidemic situation is closely monitored at different levels. If necessary, THL can give recommendations on, for example, additional vaccinations.
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