Pregnant? Get Vaccinated Against Whooping Cough to Prevent Life-Threatening Respiratory Health Issues

If you're pregnant or planning to get pregnant, it's best to immediately get vaccinated against whopping cough.

This is the advice of a doctor in Townville in Greenland after reports of rising number of whooping cough in the area. This year, some 1,141 cases have been recorded; this is double the 552 recorded cases the same time last year, and still bigger than the 784 cases in 2014.

Whooping cough or pertussis is a respiratory ailment that affect very young babies not yet six months old, as well as children aged 11 to 18 and whose immunity from earlier vaccinations have begun to fade. It is caused by the bacterium  Bordetella pertussis (or B. pertussis), and prior to the creation of a vaccine, it killed 9,000 people in the United States alone. Because of the vaccine, fatal cases have drastically gone down to as few as 20. In recent years, however, the number of whooping cough cases has hit the roof at 50,000. This was the cases in 2012, when the highest number of cases was recorded since the 1950s.

The chief health officer of Queensland Dr. Jeannette Young has sounded the alarm and urged general practitioners across the state to inform all their pregnant patients of the risks of whooping cough and the need to protect themselves and their babies from it.

In the meantime, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the recommendation for all pregnant women to get vaccinated against whooping cough in their third trimester. It said that vaccines are the most effective way to prevent the disease. There are two kinds of vaccines against whopping cough: Tdap, which is for those 11 years and older, including pregnant women; and DTaP, which is given to children aged two months to 6 years old. Both the Tdap and the DTap provide protection against whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria. The disease itself can cause severe and life-threatening health issues.