“We’re looking at this like milk on fire.” While cases of whooping cough, a bacterial respiratory infection that especially affects children, have increased in recent weeks in the United Kingdom and the United States, France is closely monitoring the evolution of this disease, explains Professor Sylvain Brisse, director of the National Reference Center. (CNR) for whooping cough on BFMTV.com.
Across the English Channel, 1,141 cases were detected in England and Wales from January to November 2023 according to the UK Health Security Agency cited by The Guardian. Compared to 450 in the same period of 2022 and 454 in 2021.
The same in the United States. The Florida Department of Health counts 86 cases of whooping cough observed in 24 of its counties, an “85% increase between July 2023 and December 2023 compared to July 2022 and December 2022.”
“The number of whooping cough cases reported in December increased compared to the previous month and was higher than the average for the previous five years,” adds the ministry in its latest report. A similar observation was made on the other side of the country, in Suffolk County, upstate New York, Le Parisien reports.
No “worrying increase”
France seems safe from the proliferation of the bacteria for the moment Bordetella pertussis responsible for respiratory infection.
“There is currently no alert on whooping cough,” emphasizes Brigitte Virey, pediatrician and president of the National Union of French Pediatricians on BFMTV.com.
The same observation among the other specialists we contacted. Professor Sylvain Brisse says that the CNR for whooping cough, responsible for monitoring the evolution of the disease in France in babies under six months of age, has not observed “a worrying increase.”
“This does not exclude the possibility of circulation among the general population, but in general there is a correlation,” he adds, specifying that whooping cough cases in France are currently comparable to their level at the beginning of 2020.
Public Health France had recorded 35 hospitalizations in 2020 and 4 in 2021 among babies under 12 months, that is, “the years with the lowest number of reported cases.”
“An immunological debt”
However, specialists expect an increase in cases. And this for many reasons.
The first? The “immunological debt” that we incurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic, explains Andréas Werner, pediatrician and president of the French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics.
By protecting ourselves from Covid, through barrier measures and periods of confinement, we have also reduced the risks of exposure to other pathologies, such as whooping cough.
Since the average level of antibodies is lower, “not being exposed to a gene increases the risk of contracting the disease later,” emphasizes the president of the French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics, who points out that he has observed the same pattern with chickenpox. , For example. The difference is that chickenpox confers long-term immunity, unlike whooping cough.
According to data from the Pari Network, a national network for monitoring pediatric infectious pathologies, no case of this disease was detected between 2021 and 2023 by its 110 collaborators.
The National Whooping Cough Network, Renacoq, reports 45 hospitalizations among infants under twelve months of age in 2022.
A cyclical disease
In addition to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, whooping cough is simply a cyclical disease, returning every three to five years.
“According to data from the RENACOQ network collected from 1996 to 2021, six epidemic peaks occurred in France: in 1997, 2000, 2005, 2009, 2012-2013 and in 2017,” notes Public Health France.
“The highest number of cases (hospitalizations among children under 17 years of age, editor’s note) of whooping cough were reported in 2000 and 2012 with 709 and 509 cases respectively,” it is stated.
“Given that Covid has altered everything and taking into account the low levels of recent years, we must expect them to increase again,” warns Professor Sylvain Brisse.
Specialists advocate vaccination
Specialists present vaccination as the best defense against the appearance of serious cases, which however remain rare.
Since 2018 it has been mandatory for infants, and several boosters are recommended (at 6 years, between 11 and 13 years and at 25 years). Si ce sont les nouveaux-nés les plus affectés par cette maladie – plus de 90 % des décès par coqueluche surviennent chez les enfants de moins de 6 mois – les parents sont à l’origine de l’infection des enfants dans plus de 50% cases.
In adults, whooping cough will present as a severe cough that can last up to several weeks.
“In adults and older children, we can have whooping cough without realizing it,” observes the president of the French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics, Andréas Werner.
The latter therefore recommends consulting a doctor if the cough persists beyond “fifteen days – three weeks.”
Especially since this disease spreads very quickly, especially through the air. According to the Health Insurance, an infected person infects on average between 15 and 17 other people.
From 2022, it is also recommended that pregnant women be vaccinated against whooping cough, “the best protection for babies”, according to Professor Sylvain Brisse. This helps, in particular, to protect newborns under two months old, the age at which they can receive their first dose. And age at which they are most exposed.
Between March 2016 and December 2019, four babies between 7 and 20 days old, not suitable for vaccination, died according to the hospital centers in the Renacoq network.
Source: BFM TV
