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Babies in the Philippines keep dying from whooping cough – amid a 30-fold spike in infections
- Dozens of infants have died from the highly contagious yet preventable respiratory tract infection in the Philippines already this year
- Health experts say persistent vaccine hesitancy, and one of the world’s lowest child immunisation rates, is fuelling the outbreak
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Doctors and officials in the Philippines are linking low immunisation rates, possibly caused by past vaccine fearmongering, to a recent rise in whooping cough cases that have led to at least 49 deaths among young children this year.
Dr Albert Domingo, an official in the Philippines’ Department of Health, told This Week in Asia that 862 cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, had been recorded in the first three months of this year.
A highly contagious yet preventable respiratory tract infection, pertussis is easily spread through sneezing or coughing and can cause serious illness in people of all ages – but is most dangerous for babies.
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The World Health Organization only recommends administering the first diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine to children at six weeks of age, leaving very young infants particularly vulnerable to infection.
But in the Philippines’ recent whooping-cough outbreak, the worst-hit age group – with 34 deaths – was infants aged six weeks to four months, Domingo said.
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Among those who have died from complications related to the infection this year were also 13 babies under six weeks of age, a five-month-old infant and a four-year-old child.
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