Irish mothers have poor knowledge of whooping cough vaccination recommendations, either for themselves during pregnancy or for adolescents in their household who might come into contact with a new baby.

Researchers at the Department of Paediatrics at NUI Galway assessed maternal knowledge of clinical whooping cough infection, vaccination status of immediate newborn household contacts, and analysed maternal attitudes towards the Irish National Immunisation Committee recommendations.

The survey of 240 mothers found that they had a poor understanding of the symptoms of whooping cough and did not appreciate that adult and adolescent household contacts are the most frequent source of infection.

The study found that, based on the mothers' recollections, only 2.5% of mothers and 1.1% of adolescents respectively had received a whooping cough vaccine in the previous 10 years.

However, the survey found that 114 out of 121 of the mothers' children under five had received up-to-date whooping cough vaccinations.

Nearly nine out of 10 mothers surveyed were unaware that the HSE had in 2011 introduced a booster vaccine for 11-14 year-olds that protects against whooping cough.

The research was presented at the Euroopean Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID) in Dublin today.

More details about whooping cough vaccination are available here

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