Whooping cough epidemic: Mum urges people around babies to get vaccinated

Liz McGimpsey used to be sceptical of vaccination - until her daughter Freda contracted whooping cough at just four weeks old.

After three weeks in Wellington Hospital, the critically ill baby was airlifted to Starship in Auckland.

"We were told when we got there, 'Your baby is probably not going to make it. Babies that get this unwell with whooping cough don't usually make it, and we've just had a baby die in the last month from it up here'.

"So that was pretty shocking for us."

Fortunately, Freda did survive - she needed two blood transfusions, suffered a collapsed lung and was in Starship for three weeks.

Ten years on, her mother - who is now a student midwife - urges anyone who is pregnant or spending time around tiny babies or the elderly to get vaccinated.

"It's one way that when can protect their little ones over this time when there are outbreaks at this time of year. This is exactly the time of year that Freda was in hospital.

"It's just the worst thing you can ever go through, apart from obviously your baby dying, and we're so lucky that she didn't. It was really a miracle."

Three babies died from whooping cough in New Zealand in 2023, when it was not at epidemic levels.

In the past four weeks there have been 263 cases - the highest number in a single month this year.

Te Whatu Ora national clinical director for protection Dr Susan Jack said public health units nation-wide had swung into action, managing cases and contacts, and ramping up the message about immunisation.

"We acknowledge that there are access issues to primary care or getting vaccinated, so we are just asking everyone to do everything they can to get vaccinated."

Total immunisation rates for two year olds fell in the first half of the year.

For the three months to the end of June, overall coverage was 76.5 percent - a drop of just under 0.7 percent since the previous quarter - and way below the 90 percent target.

It was even worse for Māori, with just 63.2 percent of two year olds fully immunised; for Pasifika babies, it was 71.3 percent.

Leading infectious disease expert Helen Petousis-Harris from Auckland University said those woeful vaccination rates were leaving Kiwis vulnerable.

"They're really, really dreadful. And also, it's one of those vaccines that's not particularly good at preventing transmission.

"So while it's pretty good at stopping someone getting really sick, it's not very good at stopping the spread."

About half the babies who catch whooping cough before the age of 12 months need hospitalisation.

Of every 100 babies hospitalised, one or two die of the disease, and about two in 1000 are left with permanent brain damage, paralysis, deafness or blindness.

The other group at particularly high risk is older people.

Wellington man Peter Crosland, 75, is usually fit and healthy - but a bout of whooping cough in September hit him hard.

"I started coughing and I become apoplectic. My whole chest would completely seize up and I would feel as if I was going to choke.

"And it went on for weeks and weeks."

His wife, who is a doctor, said she had never seen him so sick.

"They call it the 100-day cough, and it really did drag on."

Vaccination is free in pregnancy and for adults over 45 who have not had four previous tetanus shots, and from age 65.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.