Coventry health experts urging people to get vaccinated for whooping cough
The UK Health Security Agency has confirmed cases have reached 10,000
Pregnant women across the Coventry and Warwickshire are being urged to get vaccinated for whooping cough to protect their babies from birth onwards.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed more than 300 have been reported in babies under three months old, who are at the greatest risk from the infection.
Another infant has died after contracting whooping cough, bringing the total number of deaths from the disease in the current outbreak in England to 10.
Lily Makurah is the Public Health consultant for Coventry City Council.
She said: “It’s really important for people to understand that babies and young people need the most protection, because they’re the most at risk of becoming very unwell. One of the most important ways we provide this protection is for anyone who is pregnant to get vaccinated. It means the baby will be born with some immunity.
“We’ve been counting cases since October and we’ve had 48 in Coventry that were confirmed and 112 suspected cases.”
Confirmed cases in the second quarter, from April to June, exceeded those in any quarter of the last major whooping cough outbreak in 2012.
The current outbreak is thought to have begun in November last year, with the first infant death confirmed in December.
Whooping cough cases have been at high levels across all regions in England because of a combination of factors, including reduced immunity resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic when cases plummeted, health officials said.
It is a cyclical disease that peaks every three to five years with the last such increase occurring in 2016, meaning the latest peak is "overdue".
The number of pregnant women with vaccination coverage in March was 58.9%, far lower than the peak coverage of 72.6% in March 2017.
This is despite evidence showing that vaccination at the right time in pregnancy provides 92% protection against infant death.