A three-year-old boy from the Ostrava region died on Monday at the Motol University Hospital after contracting diphtheria. The child was not vaccinated. He is the first child to die from diphtheria in the Czech Republic since 1969.
This is prompting health officials to urge parents to check their children's vaccinations.
“The disease occurred in a minor, unvaccinated boy of preschool age. Based on this disease, anti-epidemic measures were ordered in the family. The entire family was hospitalized at the infectious medicine clinic of the University Hospital in Ostrava and treated with antibiotics, and anti-epidemic measures were ordered in the school team,” said Aleš Kotrla, a spokesman for regional hygienists. According to the State Institute of Public Health, it was a three-year-old child.
According to Kotrla, the risk to the public is very low. The hygiene service reacted immediately, tracing all contacts, thereby ensuring that the disease did not spread further.
The head of the National Reference Laboratory, Jana Zavadilová, said that four other siblings of the deceased boy were probably also infected with the bacteria. “In the National Reference Laboratory for Pertussis and Diphtheria of the State Institute of Health, we examined isolated strains of the bacteria from two siblings of the infected child. The tests showed that the bacteria produce diphtheria toxin,” she added.
Jan Kynčl, Head of the Department of Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health, pointed out that even immunity after complete vaccination in childhood is not lifelong and gradually weakens. It lasts for about 10 to 20 years. Therefore, adults are recommended to be revaccinated against diphtheria every 10 years.
The preschooler was transferred to the Motol University Hospital in Prague at the end of April after his health deteriorated, where he died on Monday. “This was a patient who had not been vaccinated against diphtheria,” Kotrla emphasized, adding that otherwise diphtheria is still relatively rare in the Czech Republic thanks to regular vaccinations.
Hygienists emphasize that vaccination is the most effective protection. “Vaccination against diphtheria is mandatory in the Czech Republic and provides reliable protection. This tragic case reminds us how essential and important protection through vaccination is,” said Barbora Macková, director of the State Institute of Public Health.
Diphtheria is caused by the bacteria Corynebacterium diphtheriae, but the disease only fully develops when it comes to strains that produce poison. It is a highly contagious disease that, for example, still kills thousands of people a year in Africa, but is very rare in the Czech Republic. For decades, it did not occur here, or only occasionally. However, recently the number of patients has been increasing again.
Diphtheria has been known since ancient times and, before the introduction of vaccination in 1946, was one of the leading causes of childhood morbidity and mortality. It most often manifests as a severe sore throat with grayish plaques that lead to narrowing of the larynx and pharynx and suffocation. Diphtheria can release toxins into the circulatory system, which can cause extensive organ damage. Complications affecting the heart and neurological complications can develop.
From 2000 to 2022, diphtheria was not reported at all in the Moravian-Silesian Region. By 2024, hygienists had recorded six cases. Last year, there were 14, mostly skin forms of the disease, and in two cases, respiratory forms. This year, hygienists have recorded nine cases so far, including the death of a minor child.
Diphtheria returned to the Czech Republic in 2022 after 27 years.