Chris Black writes:
There’s been a report in the Guardian about a recent rise in the number of cases of whooping cough in the UK. This triggered a lot of personal memories – I had whooping cough when I was four, closely followed by measles and chicken pox and mumps when I was five or six! So I was quite alarmed by the article:
A rise in whooping cough cases has prompted a warning to parents to ensure their children’s vaccinations are up to date.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there had been 665 confirmed cases already this year, compared with 1,040 in the whole of 2011.
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Cases have been reported across all regions in England, with some areas reporting clusters in schools, universities and healthcare settings. Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, affects people of all ages but the recent increase has seen cases in very young children, who have the highest risk of severe complications and death…..
You can find a video on Youtube of “clinical examples of pertussis” – it’s not very pleasant to watch. The Health Protection Agency has more information on their website, both about whooping cough and measles:
?Whooping cough can spread easily to close contacts such as household members. Vaccination is the most effective way to protect people from this infection and uptake of the vaccine is very good….
…….The HPA is also reminding parents to ensure their children are protected against measles due to a slight increase in cases since the beginning of the year. So far, 253 laboratory confirmed measles cases have been reported to the agency in 2012 compared to 200 cases reported for the same period last year. The majority of cases have been in unvaccinated individuals.
Dr Ramsay continued: ?As we approach the time of year when many children are travelling on school trips and family holidays, we are again urging parents to protect their children against measles by ensuring they have been immunised with two doses of MMR.
If there’s any good news, it’s that the East of England is one of the least affected regions. There were just 33 confirmed cases of whooping cough in the first three months of this year – compared with 53 in London and 154 in the South-East region.
Also there have been only three cases of measles in the East of England – none in January , two in February and one in March. That compares with 136 in the North West of England.