NSW whooping cough rates highest in almost a decade
There's been a spike in respiratory illnesses in New South Wales. Whooping cough is at its highest rate since 2016 and the number of young children presenting to hospital with pneumonia is more than double what it was this time last year.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00It's a really interesting thing that we see, and we've seen in the last couple of weeks.
00:06And probably more importantly, we're predicting that it will be continuing on for the next
00:10few weeks.
00:11And that's this spike in a number of respiratory viruses, like you say, absolutely whooping
00:17cough, but also influenza, COVID, and a few others like mycoplasma and pneumonia.
00:23There's a few reasons for it.
00:24Some of them are cyclical, and we expect to see these increases every few years.
00:30But this year, we've definitely seen quite a large number of range of viruses all hit
00:36at the same time.
00:38Who does it affect particularly badly?
00:42So for whooping cough, we're really looking at our newborns, our young bubs.
00:46So those that are under six months of age that haven't been able to be fully vaccinated
00:50yet.
00:51Okay.
00:52And what are the symptoms?
00:53What symptoms can children get?
00:55Great question.
00:56So they can get really, really quite unwell.
00:58So the main stay of whooping cough is that barking who, who, who noise that they get
01:04when they get this cough.
01:06But with the cough, more importantly, is the respiratory distress, so an inability to breathe.
01:12And that's what then makes them needing hospitalization stays, needing ICU and support breathing,
01:18and sometimes, unfortunately, needing more support or passing away.
01:22Yeah, must be quite frightening for them.
01:25What are the treatments?
01:28Great question.
01:29So if we catch it early enough, we can treat it with antibiotics.
01:33And more importantly, if we catch it early enough, we can treat those that are contacts
01:37so they can stop it from spreading on to other people.
01:40But before that, it's vaccination, vaccination, vaccination.
01:44We want everyone to make sure they're up to date with vaccination.
01:47Has vaccination rates gone down?
01:49No, actually, in New South Wales.
01:52We've got really, really high rates of vaccination, but we're still seeing surges of both a whooping
01:57cough and of measles in unvaccinated populations.
02:01OK.
02:02Do you think lockdowns of COVID have anything to do with this?
02:07Yeah, so with the COVID lockdown, what we saw was not only people having vaccine fatigue,
02:14so potentially not wanting to get vaccinated, but more importantly, or just as importantly,
02:20it's people that had these two to three years of having no exposure to viruses.
02:25And now we're out and about and seeing each other again.
02:28There's a lot more virus in the community of whooping cough, but also of all of the other
02:33respiratory viruses going around as well.
02:36And presumably, the kids don't have the immunity from it because they didn't catch these sorts
02:40of things when they were locked up in COVID.
02:42Yeah, so less so for whooping cough, pertussis, but definitely for influenza, RSV, and all
02:48of the others.
02:49And just finally, how do you stop the spread?
02:52What is the advice from the medical profession to try and minimise your risks?
02:57Yeah, so it's if you're worried, see your GP, and we're always happy to do telehealth,
03:03especially if you've got a regular GP that you see to talk to you.
03:07It's to get your vaccination, and if you're sick, stay home, wear a mask, hand sanitiser.
03:12All the things that we know and love from COVID, we know works.