To let you know there is a serious whooping cough outbreak in the UK?

I think it’s got worse since then. We’re now over 1000 new cases a week.

Please - if you’re pregnant and/ or have friends/family who are, speak to your Midwife about getting the Pertussis vaccine

I blame the monster shouters. Freaked everyone out about the COVID vaccine and now parents are being idiots over the rest.

Most gps won’t test….it makes paperwork for them as it’s a noticeable disease ….they just treat with the correct AB

Except you don’t know if he recovered quicker ….cos you don’t know what he would have been like without them …yeh? …..not everyone gets the same severity of coughing or duration…. It certainly isn’t a case of once your airways are damaged it’s too late ….that’s bollocks

Yes and not really their fault because it was eradicated and now it's back. But still not the first thing people expect.

They get a booster at 3y4m, which would last them until secondary school. We historically haven't vaccinated secondary kids and adults because it is unlikely to cause severe morbidity, and extremely unlikely to cause mortality, in this age group. The NHS is unfortunately all about cost vs benefit and if you aren't going to die then it's not seen as cost effective. Now that fewer parents are vaccinating their young children (an age group that DOES suffer severe morbidity and mortality), I really hope the NHS will revisit this in order to decrease the overall burden. Frustratingly, TMK it is not even available privately to non-pregnant women so we can't even pay to protect older kids and adults. I had it for my last 2 pregnancies, and both small kids have had it, so us 3 are probably fairly well protected, but hubby would have zero immunity to it now.

It has been offered to pregnant women routinely since 2012 in the UK. I had my babies in 2022 and 2023, and had the vaccine for both.

It’s been known for a while. Natural immunity from whooping cough wears off after a similar period of time. I think during the last outbreak they offered boosters to teens. Or they added it to the vaccine schedule.

8 babies have died since January. It’s really really important that pregnant women take the vaccine offered if possible. It’s the only way to protect very small babies and as adults and older children don’t tend to whoop they may not realise they have whooping cough.

Yeah I didn’t know the vaccine wore off. Not impressed

The cough is very, very distinctive.

It doesn't have to be confirmed by blood test. My GP knew it was WC straight away due to hearing the cough.

Public health England asked for a swab for my DS to confirm.

Childhood vaccinations only last a short time.

DS has an urgent GP appointment this afternoon to be seen as we are concerned he has WC. He's 13yo.

It's taking a lot out of him. I have heard it has to be confirmed by blood test.

There are still many HCPs that have no idea. I had to go in an ambulance when I had it. The crew didn't have a clue what WC was or the symptoms. They put on no PPE. I most probably passed it on to them all and they then passed it onto other vulnerable people. But they wouldn't listen.

My friend had this persistent cough and had a blood test which revealed she had had WC She's been vaccinated as a child and is now in her fifties

That's just a colloquial name for Whooping Cough - apparently used by GPs who don't want to do the notifiable disease paperwork.

With my DS the antibiotics did mean he recovered faster. But that was only because he had them right at the beginning as I'd already been diagnosed with WC. But once your airways have been damaged it's too late.

@EatTheGnome - I'm currently pregnant and they are (rightly!) pushing the WC vaccine. It was first brought up at my first appt with the midwife and I was able to get it right after my 20 week scan. They had some very sobering stats up about the number of babies affected in my area in the waiting room.

There's been a lot of threads and posts about this on MN. Lots of us have had it and it's awful. You can wet yourself vomit and faint with the cough. And it lasts for several months. I had it 3 months ago and while feel fine in myself in general now and again I still get the horrible debilitating coughing fits.

You will probably all catch it as it's so contagious. Once someone in your family starts with cold symptoms get the antibiotics straight away. It stopped it in it's tracks for my DS.

Why aren’t kids getting a booster vaccine?

Sorry I might have mixed up 2 days/3 weeks .
I just remember they were very concerned as they have many pupils with complex and very severe medical needs, so there were a lot of worried parents.
In hindsight we were lucky. Aside from his days of high temperature, the coughing itself was violent but quite infrequent. He could go hours without coughing once, and nights weren't particularly worse either.

Sorry

in reading = increasing

Yes the numbers are in reading - I had whooping cough a few weeks ago.

I got the extract information below but typing into my browser: NHS pertussis statistics UK

Confirmed cases of pertussis in England by month, to end April 2024
In England, provisionally there were 4,793 laboratory confirmed cases of pertussis reported to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) between January and April 2024 with 555 cases in January 2024, 920 in February, 1,430 in March and 1,888 cases in April (Figure 1). This compares with 858 (provisional) laboratory confirmed cases of pertussis reported in 2023. There have been 8 reported deaths in infants who developed pertussis between January and April 2024 [footnote 1].
Pertussis is a cyclical disease that peaks every 3 to 5 years, with the last cyclical increase occurring in 2016 and the last major outbreak occurring in 2012 (Figure 2, 3). Intervention measures implemented to help control the spread of COVID-19 between March 2020 and July 2021 also had an impact on other infectious diseases, including pertussis. Consequently, pertussis activity was exceptionally low across England from April 2020 and persisted at low levels until Summer 2023 when case numbers began to increase (Figure 1). Overall numbers in 2023 remained lower than pre-pandemic years (Figure 2, Table 1). The recent increase in pertussis cases has been observed across all age groups and in every region in England and case numbers have continued to rise across the first 4 months of 2024, as expected based on usual seasonal patterns.
Of the 4,793 cases confirmed between January and April 2024, around half (2,452 cases, 51.2%) were in those aged 15 years or older and 26.3% were in children aged between 10 and 14 years (1,260 cases) (Table 2).
The number of confirmed cases in infants under 3 months, who are at highest risk of severe disease and too young to be fully vaccinated, peaked at 407 cases in the earlier 2012 outbreak then fell after the introduction of maternal vaccination. In recent years, cases in infants under 3 months increased from 2 cases in 2022 to 48 cases in 2023 but remained lower than pre-pandemic cyclical peak years; there were 83 cases in infants under 3 months in 2019 (Table 2). Incidence continued to be highest in infants under 3 months in 2023 (Figure 2). There were 181 infants aged under 3 months with confirmed pertussis between January and April 2024 whilst there were 101 cases in the same period in 2012.
In the 12 years prior to the introduction of maternal pertussis vaccination in October 2012, 63 deaths occurred in babies aged under one year with confirmed pertussis. Since the introduction of pertussis vaccination in pregnancy, from 2013 to the end of April 2024, there have been 29 deaths in babies with confirmed pertussis who were all too young to be fully protected by infant vaccination. Sadly, this includes 8 deaths in infants who had contracted pertussis between January and April 2024. Of the 29 infants that died, 23 had mothers who were not vaccinated in pregnancy.

I had it when I was 12 (pre MMR vaccine) and I still remember how horrible it was, and not being able to breathe during coughing fits.