Dr Nicholas Jones: Ministry of Public Health public health director says we're at the beginning of a serious whooping cough epidemic

Health authorities have declared a national whooping cough epidemic.

Cases have been rising and ESR reports there've been 263 cases in the past four weeks.

The disease is infectious and can be particularly dangerous and even deadly for elderly people and newborns especially.

Ministry of Health Director of Public Health Dr Nicholas Jones told Heather du Plessis-Allan we’re at the beginning of a serious epidemic.

“It can go on for about 18 months. The last time we had about 4700 cases reported over that time period, and judging by what we’re seeing overseas, we’d be expecting higher numbers in that again.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Health authorities have declared a national hooping cough epidemic. Now,
this is a very serious or other infectious disease, and
it has actually can be particularly dangerous and serious and
even deadly for older people and newborns, especially. Doctor Nicholas
Jones is the Director of Public Health at the Ministry
of Health. Hey, Nicholas, Hi there, listen, give me some context.
How worried are you. Are we just at the start

(00:21):
of something, or are we full blown into a massive
problem right now?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Look, hooping cough is a serious disease, particularly as you said,
for children under twelve months, and we know that about
fifty percent of babies who catch hooping cough before that
age and are hospitalized under six months often need to
go into intensive care. So it's a serious disease. We're
at the beginning of this epidemic, and we've seen in

(00:48):
previous epidemics it can go on for about eighteen months.
The last time, we had about forty seven hundred cases
reported over that time period, and judging by what we're
seeing over seas, we'd be expecting higher numbers and that again,
so yes, it's a serious situation, but it's the beginning
and it's not going to it's not going to go

(01:09):
up overnight.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
How long before we're full blown into it.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Then it's really hard to predict. But I think it's
weeks to months rather than days.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, okay, Now what are you putting this down to.
Is this kind of a lag effect from the borders
being closed and us not having much of it around,
or is it vaccine hesitancy or is it a bit
of both.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Look, it's partly to do with this disease itself. You know,
the body's own immune response. This disease doesn't produce lifetime immenity,
So whenever you're in that situation that no vaccine is
going to give you lifetime immunity either. So we're going
to be getting naturally waning immunity over time, and that
builds up in the population and we get these outbreaks.

(01:50):
On top of that, We've got situation where we've had
our borders closed and we've had control measures in place,
a lot of hygiene measures, et cetera with COVID, and
we think that it probably means has been less infection
in the community generally, lease opportunities for older children and
adults to kind of be boosted naturally, and we've seen
this in other countries that the levels are when it's

(02:12):
come around again seemed to be much higher. Whether I
don't know how much vaccine hesidency is contributing to this.
I suspect not as much as we might think. Look
at an issue and obviously get in your vaccines on
time as one of our key messages, but I think
there's other factors at play.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Nicholas, he thanks very much ruining us, Sir At Nicholas Jones,
Director of Public Health at the Ministry of Health. For
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