Ministry of Health reported sufficient supply of vaccines amid whooping cough outbreak

In all Russian regions, preparations for vaccination against whooping cough are available , according to a message from the Ministry of Health received by RBC.

“Multivalent preparations for vaccination against whooping cough are available in all regions of our country; according to the labeling system, their balances amount to more than 3.7 million doses,” the press service reported.

Earlier, the Izvestia newspaper reported that outbreaks of whooping cough were recorded in some regions. We are talking about St. Petersburg , Tatarstan, Chelyabinsk and Tomsk regions. With reference to data from local branches of Rospotrebnadzor, the publication wrote that in St. Petersburg the incidence increased by 12.3% over the past ten months, in Tatarstan - more than 43 times compared to 2022 (412 cases since the beginning of the year), in the Tomsk region — more than 80 times (164 cases this year versus two a year earlier), and 88 were recorded in October alone; in Chelyabinsk there are almost nine times more cases compared to the same period in 2022 (182 cases this year).

“A certain increase in the incidence of whooping cough may be associated both with the abolition of anti-epidemic and sanitary restrictive measures introduced earlier to limit the spread of covid-19 , and with the next cyclical increase in the incidence characteristic of whooping cough,” noted Vladimir, the chief freelance specialist of the Ministry of Health for infectious diseases Chulanov.

Whooping cough (whooping cough) is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. Newborns are at particular risk for infection, since children under one year old do not have their own antibodies; they do not come from the mother’s body, even if the woman is immunized. Such children are at risk of complications (bacterial pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, etc.). Adults who become infected with whooping cough may also experience serious complications, such as seizures and encephalopathy.

Vaccination against whooping cough is mainly done with the combination whole cell vaccine (DTP; it also works against diphtheria and tetanus). Children are vaccinated from the age of three months with three doses of the drug at intervals of one and a half months. At one and a half years, a single revaccination is carried out.