Health agencies say they are coordinating a national response as New Zealand is now in the “early stages of a whooping cough epidemic”.
Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand said the latest Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) reporting showed whooping cough cases had been steadily increasing again since September. This followed spikes in May, June and July.
Over the past four weeks, there were 263 cases — the highest number of cases over a four-week period to date for all of 2024.
Health officials said numbers were now at a level that met the threshold for a national epidemic to be declared.
Director of Public Health Dr Nicholas Jones said a number of countries were experiencing “record levels of Pertussis” and New Zealand should be ready to see similarly high levels of cases over the next 12 months or more.
“Our main concern with this epidemic is the risk of severe illness among babies either too young to be immunised or whose immunisations are delayed. Our key objective is to protect pēpi through on time vaccination and immunisation during pregnancy.”
He said Māori and Pacific pēpi would be most affected.
“Even in countries with very high levels of immunisation, epidemics still occur every few years, but the numbers of babies who get very sick is much lower when mothers have been vaccinated during pregnancy, and when pēpi are vaccinated on time,” Jones said.
Health New Zealand’s national clinical director protection Dr Susan Jack said the National Public Health Service is “well prepared to manage the epidemic”.
“Our last major outbreak of pertussis was in 2017, but they can last for months and potentially for a year or more, so this will be a marathon, not a sprint.”
She said around 50% of pēpi who catch whooping cough before the age of 12 months required hospitalisation and 1 or 2 in 100 of those hospitalised children die from the infection.
“The best protection for infants is for their mother to be vaccinated during pregnancy. The antenatal vaccination for pertussis is safe and free. This is most effective when given from 16 weeks of pregnancy — and should be done during each pregnancy to provide the best protection for each baby,” Jack said.
More information on vaccination could be found online or by calling the Vaccination Healthline on 0800 282 926.
