Photo: AUBERT / BSIP / BSIP via AFP
A Pacific public health expert is encouraging Pasifika communities in New Zealand to make sure they are immunised 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's associate professor of population health Sir Collin Tukuitonga said recent health figures show 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."
Dr Collin Tukuitonga Photo: supplied by University of Auckland
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 will no doubt be fresh in the minds of all Samoans.
The confirmation came just days after New Zealand declared its whooping cough epidemic.
Sir Collin said the source of the infection is still unclear and there is nothing to suggest it originated in New Zealand.
But he said it is worrying nonetheless.
"Well 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," Sir Collin said.
This handout picture released from UNICEF Samoa shows nurse April Wilson (L) and team leader Luisa Popo preparing vaccinations during a nationwide campaign against measles in the Samoan town of Le'auva'a. Photo: AFP PHOTO / ALLAN STEPHEN / UNICEF
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 5,675 measles cases were reported and 1844 hospital admissions.
By the end of the epidemic the total death toll was 83: most of them children.
Sir Collin said Samoa is better prepared for an epidemic now and its vaccination rates are much higher than they were in 2019.
"According to the World Health Organisation website first dose for diphtheria, 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," he 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.