‘Vaccinate pregnant women against whooping cough’

PETALING JAYA: Providing Tetanus, Diphtheria and Acellular Pertussis (TDAP) vaccines to pregnant women nationwide will allow the country to have better control over the spread of Pertussis, otherwise known as the whooping cough, says Datuk Dr Zulkifli Ismail.

The Immunise4Life programme technical committee chairman said providing the vaccines, especially to undocumented children and individuals in Sabah, will be beneficial, noting how a third of the current reported cases was from there.

“Providing TDAP vaccines to pregnant women at 27 to 36 weeks of pregnancy offers immunity to the baby at birth, and before they receive their first diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis (DTap) vaccination.

“This will reduce the risk of infection to those below five months old,” said the consultant paeditrician.

The DTap vaccine that is given to children aged two, three to five months with a booster at 18 months will prevent pertussis for a limited period of between six and 16 years, Dr Zulkifli explained.

“Adult vaccination with the TDAP vaccine is needed to continue that immunity. The current hexavalent pertussis-containing vaccines are effective in preventing infection in children.

“The TDAP vaccines are effective in adults and need a single dose only,” he said.

Dr Zulkifli, who is also a paediatric cardiologist, also stressed how pertussis is highly infectious, starting from the catarrhal phase of runny nose and phlegm before the cough itself manifests.

“This means that the infected person can infect another person up to two weeks before the cough starts,” he said.

On Tuesday, Health director-general Datuk Dr Muhammad Radzi Abu Hassan said 329 cases of pertussis were reported nationwide with 23 deaths as at Aug 19. And 219 cases involved Malaysians while 110 cases were foreigners.

Infants aged below 12 months made up 189 of the cases, children aged between one and 10 years made up 94 cases, with the remainder coming from those aged 11 years and above.

Sabah had the highest number of cases (181) followed by Selangor (51), Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (15), Pahang and Perak (13 cases each), Melaka and Negri Sembilan (12 cases each), Johor (nine), Sarawak (eight), Kelantan (seven), Kedah and Terengganu (three cases each), Penang and Labuan (one case each) while Perlis had no cases.