The recent scare about the rising numbers of whooping cough cases in the UK seems to have overlooked one very important detail. In virtually every case, the child had been vaccinated.
Research by Oxford University suggests that whooping cough is ‘widespread’ among children in the UK – and, despite the rising number of cases being reported, many others go undiagnosed because doctors assume the vaccine is doing its job.
As it is, 237 cases were reported in 2004, and 289 cases in 2005. Most of the children had been vaccinated against the disease.
But the real picture is very likely much worse. The Oxford researchers interviewed doctors, who viewed whooping cough as affecting only the very young who had not been vaccinated. On that basis, most cases of whooping cough are going unreported.
The Oxford researchers discovered that, of 172 cases of children who went to their doctor with a bad cough, 64 of them had recently been vaccinated against pertussis infection, and 55 had been fully immunised.
Despite this, lead researcher Dr Anthony Harnden is adamant that the vaccine works. “The immunisation is very effective – we know that because very few infants die of whooping cough.”
True, but surely the vaccine is also supposed to protect against infection. Once established, the course of the disease is then determined by many other factors, too, such as nutritional status.
The Health Protection Agency, which pronounces on all such things of moment, says the vaccine has only a short life, and its protection soon wears off.
Sounds like a new vaccine programme for older children is waiting in the wings.
(Source: BMJ online. British Medical Journal, doi:10.1136/bmj.38870.655405.AE)