Whooping cough deaths spark vaccination call

Te Aka Whai Ora’s chief medical officer has put out an urgent call for whanau to vaccinate their children against measles and whooping cough.

Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen says over the past few weeks authorities have been able to contain three cases of measles, but babies need to be vaccinated in case the next case gets away.

There have also been the cases of a six week old and a seven week old baby dying of pertussis or whooping cough.

Babies need vaccinations for that at six weeks, three months and five months.

“There’s one more trick – hapu mama can get the vaccination and they get vaccinated while they are still pregnant and that protects the baby for the first year of life so the message today is immunisation and let’s look after our babies,” Dr Jansen says.

There have also been cases this year of meningitis in the south.

Teenagers and people living in close quarters such as university halls of residence can get vaccinated against the virus for free.

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