Since the beginning of the year, 35 people have died from whooping cough, including 22 children. Doctors fear a drop in vaccination, particularly among the most vulnerable.
A particularly significant epidemic this year. Since the beginning of 2024, at least 35 people have died after contracting whooping cough, including 22 children, reports Santé Publique France (SPF) in a press release published this Wednesday, September 18.
“We are experiencing a completely exceptional whooping cough epidemic,” Christèle Gras Le Guen, president of the French Pediatric Society, told BFMTV on Thursday.
While 134,639 cases seen in general consultation have been recorded since the beginning of the year, the pediatrician notes “a number of contaminations which is considerable and above all a number of serious forms which is also worrying”.
A “cyclical” epidemic
In July, there was a peak in the number of deaths with 9 deaths recorded, including 4 children.
For Christèle Gras Le Guen, there is “no real explanation” for this increase in the middle of summer. “This epidemic has been evolving since the beginning of 2024 and we know that whooping cough comes back cyclically, without us having any precise explanations since we have a (vaccination) coverage rate of the population that is rather satisfactory,” she judges.
The pediatrician believes that the September school year could contribute to an increase in the number of cases. “We know that group settings make germs circulate,” she recalls.
A post-Covid recovery?
More broadly, how can we explain the scale of the epidemic this year 2024? According to a scientific article from the Pasteur Institute published on Wednesday, which speaks of an epidemic “unprecedented for at least 25 years”, if the contaminations do indeed observe a cyclical rhythm, this rhythm has been disrupted in recent years.
“Since the ‘Covid period’, the regularity of the cycles has been disrupted. While we could have expected an epidemic peak in 2022 or 2023, it has been delayed,” the scientists indicate.
Indeed, epidemiologists estimate that “the lockdowns and barrier gestures linked to the “Covid period” have limited exposure to several pathogenic viruses and bacteria, including those causing whooping cough”, which probably contributed to reducing the number of cases during this period.
“As immunity gradually declines over time, all these measures, combined with the low amplitude of the last observed peaks, could have gradually reduced the overall immunity of the population against the disease,” which would explain the current resurgence in the number of whooping cough patients.
More resistant antibiotics?
In addition, the scientists observed an increase in the number of two proteins identified as “virulence factors targeted by vaccination”. “Their current predominance, contrary to what was observed before the ‘Covid period’, could also explain the current very high circulation of whooping cough,” they say.
Finally, another element of response, “scientists have also identified, for the first time in France since 2011, a bacterial isolate resistant to macrolides, the first-line antibiotics used against whooping cough”. Here too, this phenomenon could explain the increase in cases.
Possible drop in vaccination
Several doctors also point out that prevention is too weak in some patients. Last July, François Vié Le Sage, a pediatrician in Aix-les-Bains, in Savoie, and head of the vaccinology group within the French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics, noted to Le Monde that “none of the mothers of the deceased infants had been vaccinated during their pregnancy”, and that the 4-year-old child who died at that time had not been vaccinated either, as doctors recommend.
Christophe Marchenay, president of SOS Médecin in Cherbourg, also put forward on Tuesday to France Bleu the hypothesis of a drop in vaccinations linked to the Covid epidemic.
“People are becoming more and more wary of vaccination and we are starting to pay the price,” he worried.
Prioritize prevention
The president of the French Society of Pediatrics, Christèle Gras Le Guen, reminds us in this context that “it is more important than ever to protect little ones”. To this end, she calls on expectant mothers to get vaccinated. “(Vaccination) must occur during pregnancy, which means that the mother will produce antibodies that will protect the baby from birth”, she explains.
“When the disease is declared, unfortunately, there is no treatment,” she recalls, while the disease can take a serious or even fatal form in infants. Vaccination against whooping cough has been mandatory for infants since 2018 with an injection at 2 months, then one at 4 months and several boosters thereafter, according to Health Insurance.
