The number of whooping cough cases in Nelson Mandela Bay has almost tripled in just a month, jumping from 26 in mid-October to 70 now, with three babies dying from the disease.
In 2017, only five cases were recorded, with no deaths.
The Eastern Cape health department alerted the Bay in October to an outbreak of the potentially fatal contagious disease, with 26 cases registered since January at that point.
This has now risen to 70 laboratory-confirmed cases and three deaths, according to an e-mail circulated to maternal clinics in the city on Friday from Life St George’s Hospital infection prevention specialist Joy van der Walt.
It is understood two of the babies – one aged five weeks and the other a year old – died in private hospitals.
No details are known about the third child.
This comes as health department superintendent-general Thobile Mbengashe revealed in his annual report that the provincial immunisation rate had dropped from 78.6% to 67.3% in the past year.
Provincial health spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said the immunisation of babies was ongoing, as well as efforts to improve awareness and encourage people to visit health facilities.
“The key to fighting this is to improve immunisation coverage in the metro,” he said.
Netcare Travel Clinics’ Dr Peter Vincent said whooping cough, or pertussis, was a vaccine-preventable disease that often presented itself with cold-like symptoms.
“It occurs in people of all ages but can be particularly serious for infants, as they have under-developed immune systems and are at high risk of developing severe complications such as pneumonia or encephalitis,” he said.
“As many as half of all infants under the age of one year who contract whooping cough require hospitalisation, which illustrates the potential severity that this infection can pose.
“Unfortunately, some babies with the infection do not develop the distinctive cough, so it is not always obvious that they have contracted it, and in some cases the first sign of the condition is when the child stops breathing.
“Whooping cough spreads through contact with respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes.
“Parents, grandparents, siblings and other caregivers are often not aware that they have contracted the infection and may pass it on to the infants in their care without being aware that they have done so.”
The NICD reported an increase in the number of laboratory-confirmed whooping cough cases in South Africa between January and August.
According to the requirement of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) in South Africa, infants should receive four vaccine doses against whooping cough at the ages of three, five, seven and 18 months.
“In addition, pregnant women between 26 and 36 weeks’ gestation should get a dose of the quadrivalent vaccine with each pregnancy,” Vincent said.
“In addition to pertussis, the vaccine also provides protection against tetanus, diphtheria and polio.”