Brazil: São Paulo reports a four-fold increase in whooping cough compared to all last year
In Brazil, the state of São Paulo recorded 37 cases of whooping cough this year. In the capital alone, 32 cases were confirmed, which represents a four-fold increase compared to the entire year 2023, says the Municipal Health Department (SMS).
Pertussis vaccination coverage is monitored by the application of pentavalent, a combined vaccine used to prevent diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B (recombinant) and Haemophilus influenzae B (conjugate). Last year, coverage was 90.42% for children under 1 year of age in the capital.
“The increase in pertussis cases has occurred not only here in Brazil, but in several countries, and there is no single thing that explains it. We know that pertussis cases increase cyclically every three to five years. The main reason for the increase is low vaccination coverage. This happens in several places and is a phenomenon that has been happening since before the pandemic, it worsened during the pandemic where vaccination coverage for practically all vaccines, including older vaccines, such as pertussis, fell worldwide.
And, even after the pandemic, these values did not return to previous levels”, said infectious disease specialist Francisco Ivanildo de Oliveira, medical manager at Sabará Hospital Infantil.
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Oliveira said that another strategy to reduce the circulation of the disease is, in addition to ensuring the immunization of babies, to also vaccinate pregnant women, because the child born to a vaccinated mother has already received the antibodies and is safer while still receiving the first vaccines. . “Vaccination coverage of pregnant women is very low and, by increasing this, we will be able to better control the disease and reduce the number of cases. Vaccination is the safest and most effective measure to reduce cases of all vaccine-preventable diseases.”
Caused by the Borderella bacteria, whooping cough, pertussis or whooping cough, as it is popularly known, is a respiratory infection. The bacteria lodges in the throat and, in children, can be fatal by causing respiratory failure. As prevention, there is the pentavalent vaccine, offered free of charge by the Unified Health System (SUS) at 2, 4 and 6 months of life. Two more boosters with the DTP vaccine (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis), also known as triple bacterial vaccine for children, are indicated at 15 months and at 4 years.
The disease tends to spread more in times of mild or cold weather, such as spring and winter, when people stay indoors more. All it takes is contact with the cough or secretion of a person with the disease to become infected. Highly transmissible, pertussis can generate 17 secondary cases with each infection. The transmission potential is similar to that of measles and chickenpox and much greater than that of Covid-19, which generates around three secondary cases for each infection.
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Whooping cough begins with the catarrhal phase, which lasts up to two weeks, marked by mild fever, general malaise, runny nose and dry cough, being the most infectious and when the frequency and intensity of coughing attacks gradually increase. The second phase, which lasts from two to six weeks, is paroxysmal, with fever that remains low, and sudden, rapid and short coughing attacks begin, which can compromise breathing.
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