Big return of whooping cough: It's important to protect children

The season of runny noses, flu and other diseases is underway. But whooping cough has returned to Serbia, a disease that could have been eradicated until now. This infectious disease caused by bacteria is also known as "whooping cough".

From the beginning of the year to the end of the first week of December, 458 cases of whooping cough were registered in Serbia.

As epidemiologist Zoran Radovanović warns for "Vreme", this is the number of established cases, while the actual number is higher. Because either people don't see a doctor, or they haven't been given an accurate diagnosis, or they haven't filled out the illness report.

Whooping cough can also infect adults. However, Radovanović emphasizes that, if parents do not vaccinate their child, the death of small patients is possible, which happened in Serbia in previous years.

"Infection of adults is inevitable, but it is important to protect infants and small children, because among them the infection can end fatally," warns Radovanović.

Appearance of whooping cough in Serbia

In the first decade of this century, reports of whooping cough in Serbia were reduced to low double-digit numbers, says Radovanović and adds that this is a consequence of good vaccine coverage, but to a greater extent also the absence of active search for the sick.

He further explains that when active surveillance of this disease was introduced in Vojvodina, the public's perception of the frequency of whooping cough changed. Thus, in 2018, 351 patients were reported throughout the country, of which 300 came from the territory of the Province.

This year, the frequency of whooping cough has reached a record, and according to our interlocutor, such a jump is also characterized by other respiratory infections.

"The reason is isolation, physical separation, wearing masks and similar measures implemented due to the covid pandemic. "Since the beginning of 2020, the population of sensitive groups has also increased, so an increase in the number of illnesses was inevitable," he emphasizes.

However, for this reason, other respiratory infections are more numerous. And so Radovanović says that the current, ninth wave of covid has been going on since August, and that an additional increase in the number of infected people is expected in the coming weeks.

"An epidemic wave of seasonal flu is also on the horizon."

Prevention - vaccine

The most important way of prevention is immunization. As stated on the website of the "Dr. Milan Jovanović Batut" Institute for Public Health, whooping cough vaccines are usually given in combination with diphtheria and tetanus vaccines.

"For infections that can be prevented by vaccination, it is important that the population be vaccinated", says Zoran Radovanović and adds that many infectious diseases such as smallpox, smallpox and others have been eradicated by this measure, but also diphtheria, tetanus have been eliminated, and some diseases have been reduced to a minimum. like whooping cough.

He also explains that the vaccination of infants is carried out at the age of six or eight weeks, and that in that critical period from the arrival from the maternity ward to the administration of the first dose of the vaccine, the infant is protected in many developed countries by vaccinating all the adults in the household.

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