Children's hospital preparing for whooping cough epidemic

The Children’s Department of the Deventer Hospital has made preparations for a whooping cough epidemic, a disease that is especially dangerous for very young children. The disease is currently rapidly spreading through the Netherlands, with relatively the most cases reported in the Overijssel region, NU.nl reports.

The hospital isn’t flooded with patients, and the preparations aren’t as visible or major as the ones taken during the coronavirus pandemic, for example. Mostly, the hospital gave a refresher course to its employees and stocked up on the necessary equipment, pediatrician Monique Gorissen told the newspaper.

“Do we recognize it, do we recognize all its forms, and are we sure that we recognize it in time? We all know that, but you have to refresh it,” Gorissen said. The other preparations are practical - stocking up on antibiotics and making sure the laboratories can test for whooping cough quickly.

Most children experience whooping cough as nothing more than an annoying cough that persists for weeks. But very young children and the elderly don’t have the strength to handle the cough, which makes the disease dangerous to them. Young children with a serious infection are almost always admitted to the hospital.

Recent cases at the Deventer Hospital have gone well, Gorissen said. But she stressed that these cases almost all involved young children whose mothers had been vaccinated. “Those children get a mild form of whooping cough, not so serious.” A serious whooping cough infection is much harder to treat. “It is a disease of which we know: if things go wrong, we do our utmost, but it can be very difficult to treat.”

Last week, the RIVM reported that there have been almost 7,200 infections in the Netherlands this year - the highest number in ten years. 375 cases involved babies, half of whom had to be hospitalized. The vast majority of hospitalized babies were not vaccinated or had an unvaccinated mother.

Experts attribute the increasing infections mainly to the declining vaccination rate, according to NU.nl. Babies get vaccinated against whooping cough with the DPTP vaccination from the national vaccination program. Pregnant women can get the vaccine at 22 weeks. Last year, the baby vaccination rate dropped below 90 percent.