Pasifika public health expert urges communities to get immunised against whooping cough

A Pacific public health expert is encouraging Pasifika communities in New Zealand to make sure they are immunized against whooping cough.

This comes after Health New Zealand last week declared a whooping cough epidemic in the country with over 260 confirmed cases in the past four weeks.

Auckland University associate professor of population health Sir Collin Tukuitonga said recent health figures showed a high rate of hospital admissions for Pasifika presenting with whooping cough.

"I saw some figures here in Aotearoa in the last month: 28 percent of Pacific people who were reported to have had whooping cough ended up in hospital," Sir Collin said.

"It's the highest rate of hospitalisations in Pacific people and I would just encourage and remind our people to get vaccinated if they haven't done so."

Samoa confirmed whooping cough case a concern

The Samoa health ministry on Monday confirmed an unvaccinated seven-week-old baby had whooping cough earlier this month; and has since recovered.

Sir Collin said the devastating 2019 measles outbreak would no doubt be fresh in the minds of all Samoans.

The confirmation came just days after New Zealand declared its whooping cough epidemic.

The source of the infection was still unclear and there was nothing to suggest it originated in New Zealand, Sir Collin said.

But he said it was worrying nonetheless.

"Well [I'm] obviously very concerned I am sure the people of Samoa will be too given what happened with the measles outbreak. Whooping cough is a nasty disease and so it is a concern I am sure to everyone."

World Health Organisation records of Samoa's 2019 measles epidemic show their were 81 deaths between 15 November and 29 December that year. In the same period 5675 measles cases were reported and there were 1844 hospital admissions.

By the end of the epidemic the total death toll was 83: most of them children.

Sir Collin said Samoa was better prepared for an epidemic now and its vaccination rates were much higher than they were in 2019.

"According to the World Health Organisation website first dose for diptheria, tetanus and pertussus [is] 98 percent and third dose [in the] high eighties so clearly much much better than when the measles outbreak took place," Sir Collin said.

According to the University of Auckland Samoa has a chronic problem with low vaccination rates but a botched vaccination procedure in 2018 which caused the deaths of two babies, followed by an anti-vax misinformation campaign, saw vaccination rates drop to 40 percent in 2019, even lower (31 percent) for children under five years old.