SEVILLE, March 5 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Andalusian Association of Family and Community Nurses (Asanec) has warned of the need to “back up vaccination against whooping cough with an additional dose”, given the rise in cases of this respiratory infection in Andalusia. Whooping cough affects all age groups, with adolescents and adults being the main source of transmission.
As Asanek explained, whooping cough is an endemic respiratory infection, epidemic outbreaks of which occur cyclically. This disease is highly contagious and is transmitted through close contact with an infected person through coughing or contact with respiratory secretions.
“The maximum contagiousness of this infection, which is more common in winter and spring, occurs during the catarrhal period and the first two weeks with an incubation period of seven to 20 days,” the association noted. In this sense, the head of the immunization department at Asanec, Eva Alman, noted that whooping cough is especially dangerous in the first months of life.
“90 percent of hospitalizations occur in children under one year of age, with a higher percentage occurring in children under three months of age due to serious complications and even mortality.” Likewise, Alman explained that “the importance of strengthening vaccination against whooping cough with the new dose recommended by various scientific societies is mainly due to the fact that the population’s immunity to this disease weakens over time.”
Asanec recalled that “in Spain, whooping cough has been in a state of sustained epidemic since 2010.” According to the Carlos III Institute, an average of 4,000 cases have been reported annually since 2011, with a maximum peak between 2014 and 2019. Additionally, a report published by the National Center for Epidemiology, which analyzed the period from 2005 to A total of 43,534 cases of pertussis in 2020, recorded 10,281 hospitalizations (82.7 percent in children under three months of age).
At a European level, an analysis carried out between 2010 and 2020 to understand the burden of whooping cough among adults over 50 years of age found that the disease follows similar trends to those seen in children zero to four years of age. “They say it’s growing.
Despite the availability of vaccines of acceptable efficacy and high vaccination coverage, outbreaks occur cyclically in countries with a high human development index.
Over the past two decades, the incidence of whooping cough has increased worldwide, in both low and high Human Development Index (HDI) countries, making it one of the most common vaccine-preventable diseases.
“This indicates,” notes Asanek, “that current vaccination strategies are insufficient to reduce the burden of disease in all age groups.”
Alman states that “it is important to recognize that the actual incidence is higher because the low clinical suspicion means that pertussis in adults often goes undetected and the actual burden of disease is greater.”
PREVENTIVE ACTIONS
Regarding the preventive measures that need to be carried out against whooping cough, the person in charge of immunization in Asanets indicated that “they should mainly be aimed at protecting infants under three months of age and trying to reduce the incidence among adolescents and adults, which act as preventive measures against whooping cough Reservoir” and source of infection.
Therefore, the most effective measures to control this disease are to maintain a high percentage of vaccinated people: children, adolescents, and adults under 65, reduce transmission, and avoid exposing infants and others to fever. risk of infection.
In this sense, Asanek believes that “vaccination is the best preventive measure to combat this disease.” In Andalusia, this vaccine is administered at two, four and eleven months of age, with a booster dose after six years. “Because whooping cough does not begin until two months of age, the strategy to protect these infants is to systematically vaccinate all pregnant women against whooping cough,” they explained.
Thus, vaccination is carried out after 27 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, since in this way the mother develops antibodies against the disease, which will be transmitted to the fetus through the placenta and will protect it until the time of vaccination.
Other additional indirect measures to protect infants and children include vaccination of health care workers, especially those who are in direct contact with children, such as gynecologists, pediatricians, midwives, neonatologists and nurses in pediatric intensive care units, paediatrics and obstetrics, as well as kindergarten teachers . Likewise, respiratory isolation of a symptomatic person may continue until they have completed at least five days of treatment and, in some cases, treatment of people living with them.
Asanec is the Andalusian Association of Family and Community Nurses, made up of nurses from all over Andalusia who work without any profit to develop the profession. As a learned society, it strives to improve the quality of health care at the community level through public health advocacy, influence and dialogue with administrators.
Among its goals are to provide education and research in the field of nursing practice to offer quality care to the public, and to collaborate with other learned societies and associations for the better development of the profession.