Particularly dangerous for infants, whooping cough is making a comeback in France. It killed two three-month-old children in Montpellier in 2024. To limit serious forms of this disease, vaccination is necessary but it does not protect against contagion.
To protect yourself from an infectious disease, you must start by knowing its existence and its symptoms. Whooping cough is a particularly contagious bacterial infection. She provokes “emetizing quints”, or a cough that prevents you from breathing properly, explains Charlotte Boulé. When patients catch their breath, they emit “noisy breathing, characteristic of rooster crowing” who gave its name to whooping cough, continues the infectious disease specialist at Thierry Will’s microphone.
France 3 tells you about it because “a resumption of the circulation of whooping cough is beginning in France” according to data from Public Health France. Compared to around forty cases reported to the organization in 2022, then in 2023, SPF already recorded 70 in France at the end of the first quarter of 2024.
The pediatric emergency department of Montpellier University Hospital, June 14, 2024.
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© Yannick Le Teurnier – France Télévisions
Occitanie is not spared. Head of pediatric emergencies at Montpellier University Hospital, Éric Jeziorski confirms that there are currently “more children hospitalized” for this infection in his service, some for “malignant forms”.
According to him, we observe this same dynamic for other contagious diseases which have experienced “A stop” during Covid, and are coming back in force due to our “immune debt”.
Among these diseases, whooping cough is particularly rare, contagious and dangerous for babies, pregnant women and immunocompromised people. Two three-month-old children died in Montpellier in 2024.
The vaccine against the whooping cough is mandatory for infants since January 1, 2018, recommended for children born before this date, and is part of the planned recalls. It is also directly available in pharmacies, without a prescription.
Too young to be vaccinated, newborns will be protected if their mother has herself been vaccinated – the antibodies are transmitted during gestation, via the placenta.
The whooping cough vaccine has been compulsory for infants since January 1, 2018.
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© Franck Dubray – Ouest France – MAXPPP
But “the vaccine protects us imperfectly”. Vaccinated, “you will not develop serious forms but you will remain very contagious”, Eric Jeziorski further specifies. In order to protect others, it is therefore recommended to mask yourself as soon as symptoms appear.
And since it is not always possible to know if you are coughing for the flu or whooping cough (this is a “infection whose symptoms are shared by many diseases”)pharmacist Kevin Acriz recommends not taking risks and wearing a mask in all cases, “as we did for previous epidemics”.
