Joel Rheinberger
There are so many respiratory diseases floating around. It is just inevitable that your child will catch a cough at some point. But not all coughs are the same. When you hear that gasping intake of breath, that’s something serious going on. Now, what causes whooping cough?
Shannon Melody
Whooping cough, you might have also heard the term pertussis. It’s a highly contagious infection of the respiratory tract, so the lungs and the airways. And it’s caused by a bacterium known as Bordetella pertussis. It can affect anyone across the lifespan, so any age. But it’s particularly young infants, especially those who are too young to be vaccinated themselves, can have quite severe illness. And sometimes that is life threatening illness. The good news, though, is that it is vaccine preventable. So keen to talk this afternoon about how people can protect themselves and particularly the most vulnerable.
Joel Rheinberger
How do you know that you’ve got whooping cough rather than just another cold?
Shannon Melody
It is quite a challenge. So whooping cough in the beginning can look like the common cold. And it does vary by age and it does vary by vaccination status. It does get a little bit tricky. So early on, whooping cough might look like a runny nose, a bit of a cough, a fairly unremarkable cough. Sometimes a low grade fever, but not always. And then where whooping cough kind of declares itself is around day seven. So a week in where coughing fits can develop. And they’re quite remarkable coughing fits like your audio at the beginning of the segment demonstrated. So people can have these really awful coughing fits, 10, 20, 30 coughs in a row where they’re really trying to take that big inhale of breath. That’s sort of children and adults. But infants, on the other hand, they might not have those coughing fits. They can have episodes where they just stop breathing, which is very scary. They’re called apnea episodes. So, yeah, it’s a little bit variable and a bit tricky in that it can be indistinguishable in the early days.
Joel Rheinberger
How long does it take to even present itself as a cold from when you’ve been exposed to it?
Shannon Melody
Yes, if you’ve been exposed to someone who’s infectious and it is highly contagious, it’s about seven days after that you start developing those mild symptoms. Sometimes up to three weeks, but on average about seven to 10 days.
Joel Rheinberger
Wow. So because normally, you know, you with a viral infection, you know, you get coughed on and two days later you’re starting to wheeze yourself. This takes a while to really catch on.
Shannon Melody
Yeah, it is one of the longer incubation periods compared to some of those other viruses and pathogens. I think the main thing, that’s where it gets tricky in protecting the vulnerable. So the advice there is really that if you have a coughing illness, if you have respiratory symptoms, it is best to avoid people who are most at risk. So avoid visiting young babies, avoid settings where pregnant people might be, particularly late in their pregnancy. So baby showers, childcare settings, healthcare settings, because you won’t know, particularly in those first few days with that mild runny nose, you’ll often shake it off. So just be quite vigilant around the fact it could be whooping cough and take care to avoid those high risk individuals, particularly at the moment where we are in a period of increased whooping cough activity. So we have had outbreaks of whooping cough through Tasmania and Australia across this year and last year as well.
Joel Rheinberger
Now, how dangerous is whooping cough and who to?
Shannon Melody
Yeah, so it’s most severe in very young infants. So under six months of age where if they get whooping cough, quite a high proportion do end up in hospital. It can be life threatening and sadly, infants do lose their life to whooping cough. In Australia, every year and particularly when we do have increased activity. So it’s really those young that are the most vulnerable. And the reason they’re vulnerable is that they’re too young to be vaccinated themselves. So we do have a vaccine that is effective in the short term in protecting individuals. Boosters are required. We don’t maintain immunity. So that’s, you know, there’s five points in the early childhood schedule and the year seven point in the schedule to maintain that immunity. And pregnant women as well are recommended in each and every pregnancy to come forward in the second trimester and get that vaccine so that they pass on immunity to the baby when they’re born to protect them in their first few months while they’re too young to get vaccinated themselves.
Joel Rheinberger
I have actually heard new parents make it a rule. If you want to visit the baby, you’ve got to make sure your whooping cough vaccine is up to date. Is that a reasonable idea in your opinion?
Shannon Melody
It’s very savvy, particularly in the current period where we do have a fair bit of whooping cough around. So the tips there are pregnant women to, of course, be vaccinated. The partner, so the other parent, to make sure that they’ve had a booster.
Joel Rheinberger
I had to get a booster when I had my baby.
Shannon Melody
Yeah. And grandparents and family members that will be visiting the baby. It’s a really safe, effective way to reduce the risk for those infants.
Joel Rheinberger
How does it actually have to be treated if it does get bad, if it heads towards hospital? Is it something that is generally curable?
Shannon Melody
Yeah, so whooping cough can be treated. The earlier the better. There is an antibiotic available. The first sort of best tool is prevention in the first instance. But of course, if someone does develop whooping cough, early recognition of symptoms, particularly in young babies, is key to get onto early antibiotic treatment and prevent it becoming a more serious illness.