The high health authority published a press release on Tuesday in which it expressed its recommendation to pregnant women: they should be vaccinated against whooping cough from the second trimester of pregnancy, so that the newborn is protected from birth. .
Pertussis is a particularly contagious disease that results in severe coughing spells for several weeks and can cause complications in toddlers.
Since 2013, a thousand children under the age of one have been hospitalized in France because of whooping cough.
In order for their newborn to be protected from birth, pregnant women should be vaccinated against whooping cough from the second trimester of pregnancy, French health authorities estimated on Tuesday, thus joining the recommendations of many other countries.
"The High Health Authority (HAS) recommends vaccinating pregnant women against whooping cough in order to protect the newborn in whom this disease is particularly dangerous," said this body in a press release.
“This vaccination must be carried out from the second trimester of each pregnancy”, she specifies.
Caused by a bacterium, whooping cough is a particularly contagious disease that results in severe bouts of coughing for several weeks.
In the majority of patients, it is not serious but can cause sometimes fatal complications in the little ones.
#Communiqué |
The HAS is in favor of vaccinating pregnant women against whooping cough in order to protect the newborn, who is particularly vulnerable to this disease.
👉https://t.co/4xjZ7TCsOZ@sante_gouv @santepubliquefr pic.twitter.com/5CRl45z48f
– High Authority for Health (@HAS_sante) April 12, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
Repeat vaccination with each pregnancy
Since 2013, a thousand children under the age of one have been hospitalized in France because of whooping cough and a few deaths are recorded each year, even if their number is disproportionate to those recorded in developing countries. development, where vaccination is less frequent.
Until then, the French health authorities only recommended direct vaccination of toddlers and not pregnant women.
However, many other countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, encourage such vaccination at the end of pregnancy, with the idea of giving the child protection from birth.
"The data published in pregnant women exposed to the pertussis vaccine during pregnancy are very numerous and reassuring, and relate in particular to the 2nd and 3rd trimester", notes in particular on its site the Reference Center for Teratogenic Agents ( CRAT), an organization that monitors the risks to the fetus of drugs taken during pregnancy.
The High Authority for Health therefore aligns itself with these recommendations, noting that the British data testify to the effectiveness of such vaccination in avoiding hospitalizations in infants.
The authority had already made an exception since 2018 for the territory of Mayotte, where it recommended vaccination for pregnant women in order to curb a local epidemic of whooping cough.
It therefore now extends this recommendation to the whole of France, deeming it necessary to repeat the vaccination with each pregnancy because of the limited duration of effectiveness of the pertussis vaccines.
Health
Coronavirus: Will the Novavax vaccine convince the recalcitrant or is it too late?
Health
Cervical cancer: A sufficient dose of vaccine for those under 21, according to the WHO
Women
Vaccine
Pregnancy
Sickness
Babe
Health