Disease on the rise
Infant with whooping cough had to be ventilated
Whooping cough is on the rise: for the first time, two babies at the Kepler University Hospital (KUK) in Linz are being cared for in the pediatric intensive care unit. A two-month-old child was treated with a ventilator and blood exchange. An equally old baby with a pre-existing condition needed a neurosurgical operation.
One child is being treated on the normal ward and needs respiratory support. "We must have looked after eight to ten children at the same time in winter," reports KUK senior consultant Ariane Biebl. This is the first time that such a high number of severe cases and treatments on the intensive care unit have occurred on this scale and "that is alarming", says Biebl.
Whooping cough is particularly dangerous for babies up to the age of six months, even before they have been vaccinated. The little ones experience pauses and pauses in breathing. This is why they are continuously monitored in hospital, even older children.
Doctor advises vaccination
Biebl advises pregnant mothers to have a booster vaccination to give their baby protection for the first eight weeks of life. Everyone who has contact with newborns should check their vaccination status. Most infections occur within the family. Adults cough for longer, but do not usually become seriously ill; it only becomes dangerous if they have a chronic underlying illness, are immunocompromised or are elderly.
Whooping cough cases on the rise
"Austria is the leader in Europe in terms of infection figures because we have the lowest vaccination rate," says Biebl. While there were 400 cases in 2019, there were 1,600 cases of whooping cough in the previous year and this year's figure is significantly higher, says the doctor. The vaccination should be refreshed in the first year of elementary school at the latest, as the protection does not last that long. At present, this happens in the second or third grade.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,
die Kommentarfunktion steht Ihnen ab 6 Uhr wieder wie gewohnt zur Verfügung.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
das krone.at-Team
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.