Help DC's come into contact with Whooping Cough

[craziedaisy]

My 22 year old sister has been told that she has suspected whooping cough. My children saw her at the weekend while she had an undiagnosed cough. I am now going into panic mode. My son who is 5 had his booster a few months ago and my 2 year old is upto date too. Do they need to take antibiotics as a precaution?

No

No. If they do catch it chances are they'll be fine anyway. It's mainly dangerous for young babies.

I suspect if they are up to date with jabs they should be fine. However your sister really must ensure she doesn't spread it. It is highly contagious, and so very dangerous for small babies. I think you are supposed to stay in something like a week if you are on antibiotics and longer if not.

I hope your sister is ok. Both my small baby and I had it a few years ago - it was exhausting and scary for me and life threatening for her :(

My ds has recently had whooping cough, despite being vaccinated.

The cough was annoying, and sometimes a bit scary as he would look like he was choking, but he wasn't ill ill with it, if you get what I mean. Inbetwen coughing fits he was fine. I had to keep him off school for a week, and he had antibiotics. His cough in total, lasted about 6 weeks.

The gp said that incidents of whooping cough peak every 11 years, and this was the 11th.

Ds is 9 btw.

I think the vaccine has been shown to only be effective for about 5 years nutcracker.

The vaccine has a 90 per cent efficacy rate. This means that out of 10 fully vaccinated people one person will still get whooping cough.

I don't know what the window is to take antibiotics prophylactically. If you do decide on anti-biotics insist on clarithromycin as it it much better tolerated and needs to be taken only twice in 24 hours compared with the cheaper alternative erithromycin (not well tolerated, causes sickness, stomach upsets etc and needs to be taken four times in 24 hours).

Whooping cough is very infectious. It can be very mild but it can also be very severe. It can be very severe in adults and children, it is true that it is considered life threatening for babies but that does not mean that it is harmless in older children.

It is awful and lasts a long time and can result in pneumonia. It should not be underestimated. Then again, your sons might be lucky and either not get it at all or only in a mild form.

dikker, protection from the vaccine wears off after a few years.