Children spread whooping cough more than adults and teenagers, according to the journal Science on Thursday.
A research lead by Pejman Rohani and colleagues at the University of Michigan stated that a large number of children spread whooping cough more. In addition, this serves as a contradiction to the common idea that adults and teenagers are the primary reason behind whooping cough outbreak. This contradiction made the researchers point out that whooping cough vaccination in adults is a waste of time.
Thirty to 50 million people in the world are infected by whooping cough per year. Moreover, the disease gained 300,000 deaths of children in developing countries. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that developing countries have regular outbreaks, including California with a report of 6,000 people that were infected and 10 infants die because of the disease.
The researchers used a circumstance in Sweden to study the effects of social interactions about the spread of whooping cough. Whooping cough vaccination in Sweden during the year 1979 was stopped. This was not continued for 17 years, during that span of time, health officials tracked whooping cough cases by age group.
The researchers found out that Sweden resumed whooping cough vaccination for young children. This instance made the disease to depress in all age groups except in teenagers. The researchers also stated that children mostly interact with their same age group. This situation called social mixing patterns made the children infected with their same age group, and unlikely to be infected by adults.
Aaron King, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in University of Michigan pointed that there is a minimal transmission in adults. He even added that blanket booster-vaccinations for adults is not an efficient strategy to control whooping cough.
King added that there are two conclusions in the study. The first is there is a strong evidence for the efficacy of vaccination directed at children. The second is that there is a better knowledge of actual contact patterns among age groups that is crucial for the design of vaccination strategies.
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Be careful thinking your child is safe just because he is vaccinated.
• In the UK between 1970 and 1990, over 200,000 cases of whooping cough occurred in fully vaccinated children. (Community Disease Surveillance Centre, UK)
• In 1979, Sweden abandoned the whooping cough vaccine due to its ineffectiveness. Out of 5,140 cases in 1978, it was found that 84% had been vaccinated three times! (BMJ 283:696-697, 1981
* In the New England Journal of Medicine July 1994 issue a study found that over 80% of children under 5 years of age who had contracted whooping cough had been fully vaccinated