Alert gods pediatricians Italians forwhooping cough epidemic which is mainly affecting unvaccinated newborns and infants and which he recorded three deaths since the beginning of the year with a800% increase in hospitalizations compared to last year. «Whooping cough is a highly contagious and dangerous disease, especially in the first months of life and in newborns who have a greater risk of complications and death. – says the president of the Italian Society of Pediatrics Annamaria Staiano – In this age group, mortality is between 1 and 1.5%.”
The alarm also concerns Campania
THE data are made known by Alfredo Guarino, president of the Campania section of Sip: «We have seen an increase in pertussis hospitalizations of 800% compared to 2022 and 2023, which in most cases involved unvaccinated newborns and infants under 4 months of age. 95% of the mothers of these children were not vaccinated and 80% had not received any information on the availability of antenatal vaccination». As for the Campania «the situation is quite worrying given that we have recorded over 30 hospitalizations of infants suffering from whooping cough in the pediatric infectious disease centers of Naples».
How can a newborn be protected
Always the president of Italian Society of Paediatrics points out that to protect a newborn from whooping cough there is a need for «immunize the mother during the second and third trimester of pregnancy, highly safe and effective in protecting children who are still too young to be vaccinated». So the Staiano concludes: «We invite pregnant women to get vaccinated against whooping cough because the lives of our little ones are at stake. It is unacceptable that in 2024 we could die from infectious diseases for which effective and safe vaccines exist».
