Melb baby dies of whooping cough...

[beansbeans!]

This is yet another heartbreaking story. And my heart goes out to this family.

But I do think that whether you vaccinate or not is not the issue. The issue is etiquette. People just dont stay away these days when they are sick or when someone in their care is sick. These people regardless of whether they have symptoms or not are carriers, and they are the ones who spread the germs.

Whatever happened to staying home. when theres an illness in your home? And making sure that you were no longer a carrier especially before you come into contact with a baby and or their primary carers?

I dislike that it appears we have a shot for everything, that essentially gives everyone a false sense of security, that they believe that they are vaccinated so that they cannot get sick with that illness or be a carrier. I dislike that people assume that they are unable to carry illness because they never get sick or that they have been fully immunised.

I know of a lady who is taking her 3 kids to a 1st birthday party this week even though one of them has whooping cough at the moment. We will not be going, both girls have had a cough this week and I dont want anyone else to get what they have had, and because I dont want to chance them getting whooping cough.

[BellyBelly]

Kylie, it can happen, no vaccine is 100% effective and they are having lots of probs with the whooping cough vaccine at the moment (well for a little while now). Check out the other threads in this forum, a few stories have been posted about it.

[Little Chicken]

There was a very effective vaccine for whooping cough. That vaccine used the whole dead bacteria cell, but it caused high fevers and other side effects that worried parents (quite rightly), so they changed it to acellular (only part of the cell is used). This vaccine is the current one. It does not produce anywhere near the amount of side effects but it also does not produce as good an immune response.

[Catherine]

I find the herd immunity arguement difficult. It doesn't make sense to me.

As a PP said - I think vaxing is so misunderstood that people get a false sense of security, and stop taken the proper precautions to prevent spread of illness and disease (whether it be the common cold or a more serious 'preventable' disease).

In my understanding, vaccinating an individual at best produces a mild illness, but they can still pass it on. And if you are only mildly sick, you still go to school, get sent to childcare, or go to work, exposing others, who may get a mild case, pass it onto others, until someone smooches the vunerable newborn. The newborn gets sick, but everyone else feels fine, so they treat it as a cold...until the point where the child is so sick, that the illness is now severe and needs hospitalisation. I wish no disrespect or assumptions about the case in the OP (which I am not familiar with), I am talking generally. There are many ways to prevent the spread of disease, understanding how germs are spread is for more empowering than solely vaxing. Each family must decide what suits their situation, and weigh up for themselves their likely hood of exposure. BUt it is everyone's responsibility to be hygienic and to do the right thing to prevent the spread of disease - wash hands, put tissues in the bin, wash hands, cover mouth, wash hands, and use common sense and stay away from families with newborns if you or those close to you have been sick.

[~me~]

I read this story in the Age. So sad and heartbreaking for the parents. The paper explained the baby most likely got it from an adult and went on to so stress that adults should have the booster and immuisation.
I often wonder where these are caught? If we are going to immunise, perhaps we need to start looking the Adult community rather than kids?
I am just not sure, all my babies have been immunised, and are fit, healthy kids with no reactions from the immunisations.

My heart goes out to the parents of both families who have recently lost their babies to whooping cough, not only have they had to bury their babies, they also had to watch them suffer the effects of whooping cough before hand

[~Stoked~]

I find the herd immunity arguement difficult. It doesn't make sense to me.

As a PP said - I think vaxing is so misunderstood that people get a false sense of security, and stop taken the proper precautions to prevent spread of illness and disease (whether it be the common cold or a more serious 'preventable' disease).

In my understanding, vaccinating an individual at best produces a mild illness, but they can still pass it on. And if you are only mildly sick, you still go to school, get sent to childcare, or go to work, exposing others, who may get a mild case, pass it onto others, until someone smooches the vunerable newborn. The newborn gets sick, but everyone else feels fine, so they treat it as a cold...until the point where the child is so sick, that the illness is now severe and needs hospitalisation. I wish no disrespect or assumptions about the case in the OP (which I am not familiar with), I am talking generally. There are many ways to prevent the spread of disease, understanding how germs are spread is for more empowering than solely vaxing. Each family must decide what suits their situation, and weigh up for themselves their likely hood of exposure. BUt it is everyone's responsibility to be hygienic and to do the right thing to prevent the spread of disease - wash hands, put tissues in the bin, wash hands, cover mouth, wash hands, and use common sense and stay away from families with newborns if you or those close to you have been sick.

Yeah that! Well said.

[kimmi]

This is yet another heartbreaking story. And my heart goes out to this family.

But I do think that whether you vaccinate or not is not the issue. The issue is etiquette. People just dont stay away these days when they are sick or when someone in their care is sick. These people regardless of whether they have symptoms or not are carriers, and they are the ones who spread the germs.

Whatever happened to staying home. when theres an illness in your home? And making sure that you were no longer a carrier especially before you come into contact with a baby and or their primary carers?

I agree... Each to their own, but act responsibly when a person, child or adult is infectious!

[Marlene]

you cant catch it by a passer-by breathing on you.. you need very direct contact, with coughing/spitting involved, which is why it runs in families most of the time... someone who has whooping cough had to of breathed/coughed over this little one quite a bit for him/her to of caught it... simply staying away, or being more careful, would go a long way towards these things not happening.....

Actually, my entire family are on AB's at the moment (as a preventative because I only have 5 weeks till bub is due) as a baby at playgroup was diagnosed with whooping cough. When the nurse from the hospital called to advise me to go to my GP she said that because Jack and I were in a room with this baby for more than 1 hour we had to take preventative measures, even though on the day of the playgroup the baby hadn't developed a cough yet. The nurse said that the virus is at it's most contagious even before the cough comes out, when they just have a clear runny nose.
It's pretty scary, because how many people quarantine themselves at home just because they or their child has a clear, runny nose or sniffle? I know I don't. Otherwise I would be on permanent lockdown with my hayfever sniffles!!

[LizLemon]

I agree that vaccinations, whether we agree with them or not, have given us a false sense of security, so much so that parents of a fully vaxed child assume that in any situation the worst their child may have is a cold. My playgroup is a classic example, whereby people freely bring sick kids (one girl even brought a child with a case of gastro) and you are expected to either take pot luck with your child or not attend. In most cases I do not attend.

The scary thing about whooping cough is it starts out just like a cold. Anyone making a judgement call on "oh it's alright it's just a cold, no problem" and exposing others to themselves or their children is taking a risk. I am not prepared to take that risk with someone else's child. Unfortunately people don't do me the same courtesy.

If I know I will be visiting a newborn in the near future DS and I definitely don't attend PG and I think carefully about who we have been in contact with recently before I go and visit that child. I can't understand how that is not the norm.

[thepixie]

There is no way to know if a person is contagious with whooping cough at a presymptomatic stage. The person may not even consider themselves to be sick, may not feel particularly unwell. So no amount of vigilance short of total isolation can protect you. The required level of vaccination within the community for this vax to create herd immunity is rather high so the more people who do not vaccinate (adults for boosters and children) the larger the window of opportunity to the disease to spread.

[loulabelle]

I just find it so sad that this family have lost their baby and as usual, the media is turning it to something it's not.
More details may have come since I read but, the family had not mentioned vaccinations at all.( maybe in other articles?)

You are never safe, vax or no vax. Regardless of what I do with my children, everyone is entitled to make what choice they feel is best for them. I guess it shows us we need to be hyper vigilant when it comes to symptoms, treating as early as possible.

It's just sad

[LizLemon]

There is no way to know if a person is contagious with whooping cough at a presymptomatic stage. The person may not even consider themselves to be sick, may not feel particularly unwell. So no amount of vigilance short of total isolation can protect you. The required level of vaccination within the community for this vax to create herd immunity is rather high so the more people who do not vaccinate (adults for boosters and children) the larger the window of opportunity to the disease to spread.

I agree that there is no way of knowing if a person is contagious before they have symptoms, however my beef is with people who ARE symptomatic in some way and choose to spread it before they know exactly what they are dealing with. Extra vigilance will not totally protect you/your children/others but it will lower the risk of spreading things.

I am pro-vax, and agree with the herd immunity, however all I keep hearing is that the pertussis vaccine is largely ineffective. Does anyone know if this is just in children or if it is also less effective in adults?

[Pretty Butterfly]

My point isnt that you might not KNOW you have it, its being unhygenic around others.

Unless I have wrong info, you cannot catch it just by "hanging around" in general.. there must be some form of extended breathing/coughing on..... so just being careful should prevent the spread in a lot of cases......

[Schmickers]

Sorry, I'm not trying to pick a fight but I don't understand the logic that says that the herd immunity for chicken pox can have come from the vaccine (which is an unproven theory) but not from the heard immunity that has been built up from the unvaxed generation that did catch the disease (which is a proven theory). How does that work?

Because immunity is not passed on from generation to generation. The concept of "herd" immunity is that if enough people are vaccinated against a disease, it has no hosts where it can survive and is eradicated. It most recently worked with the smallpox vaccine, which was a very, very effective vaccine. Smallpox is now essentially eradicated. As far as I am aware, it has not ever worked with any other disease.

Doctors are seeing less chicken pox because children are being immunised against it and therefore are less likely to catch the disease. However, chicken pox is far from being eliminated - herd immunity is a long way away for that disease.

Unlike disease like chickenpox, catching the natural form of whooping cough does not give long term immunity either.

Catching the disease causes a very similar immune response to having the vaccine - the vaccine does not produce a life-long immunity either.

I just found out my cousin's two girls who are 6 and 3 have both been vaccinated and now BOTH have whooping cough!! That doesn't seem right??

The pertussis vaccine is at best 90% effective - some older studies have put its effectiveness at only 60%, and a lot of recent observation suggests that we are in the midst of an epidemic because the immunisation is no longer as effective as it once was. No one is really sure why this is. But at best, 90% effectiveness means that 1 in 10 children will still not be immune to pertussis.

In my understanding, vaccinating an individual at best produces a mild illness, but they can still pass it on. And if you are only mildly sick, you still go to school, get sent to childcare, or go to work, exposing others, who may get a mild case, pass it onto others, until someone smooches the vunerable newborn. The newborn gets sick, but everyone else feels fine, so they treat it as a cold...until the point where the child is so sick, that the illness is now severe and needs hospitalisation.

No, this is not really the case. The pertussis vaccine is given as a series of three separate immunisations, spaced out in order to provoke a more pronounced immune response and therefore a better resistance to the infection. Once you have had your course (presuming you are not in the 10% who doesn't develop an immunity) you are very unlikely to contract pertussis. And if you don't get it, you can't spread it.

BUt it is everyone's responsibility to be hygienic and to do the right thing to prevent the spread of disease - wash hands, put tissues in the bin, wash hands, cover mouth, wash hands, and use common sense and stay away from families with newborns if you or those close to you have been sick.

Yes, I think this is really important as well.

I read this story in the Age. So sad and heartbreaking for the parents. The paper explained the baby most likely got it from an adult and went on to so stress that adults should have the booster and immuisation.
I often wonder where these are caught? If we are going to immunise, perhaps we need to start looking the Adult community rather than kids?
I am just not sure, all my babies have been immunised, and are fit, healthy kids with no reactions from the immunisations.

Absolutely! This is a massive problem. Most of the cases of pertussis in the mid north coast NSW epidemic that occurred a couple of year ago were traced to adult contacts. The fact is, you need aisgnificant exposure to contract pertussis. A paediatrician I know and respect has told me that in his experience, the average case of pertrussis has a 4-hour exposure to someone else with the disease. It is very common for it to spread within households, where family members with close contact have the disease and don't realise.

[Little Chicken]

Catching the disease causes a very similar immune response to having the vaccine - the vaccine does not produce a life-long immunity either.

I realise that, but sometimes it is thought catching a disease naturally gives a lifelong immunity and I was just pointing out that that is not always the case.

[LizLemon]

No, this is not really the case. The pertussis vaccine is given as a series of three separate immunisations, spaced out in order to provoke a more pronounced immune response and therefore a better resistance to the infection. Once you have had your course (presuming you are not in the 10% who doesn't develop an immunity) you are very unlikely to contract pertussis. And if you don't get it, you can't spread it.

Michael can you just clarify that - because as mums we have always been told that if the child is immunised and still DOES contract the disease that they will receive a milder form. And that's what I thought Catherine was saying. Are you saying that this is not the case and it will be all or nothing? Also, that (again contrary to what we've always been told) there is no such thing as "carriers"?

Or have I totally misunderstood your post?

Ta

[Schmickers]

Some children may catch the pertussis germ and develop mild symptoms. Some children will not catch it at all. And around 1 in 10 or possibly more children will develop no protection, and if they catch the pertussis germ they will develop full symptoms. The first and third groups can spread the disease; as far as I am aware, the second group cannot. I am not aware of it being possible to be a pertussis "carrier" without actually contracting the disease.

[Marlene]

A paediatrician I know and respect has told me that in his experience, the average case of pertrussis has a 4-hour exposure to someone else with the disease.

Hmmmm, maybe I shouldn;t have spent $85 on antibiotics!!! Better to be safe than sorry, I suppose