INMYVIEW... DON’ T BE COMPLACENT ABOUT JABS

WE FORGET too easily the huge impact vaccines have had on our lives. I was reminded of this during the recent cold spell, when two senior ladies — one aged 89, the other 91 — came over for afternoon tea in front of a blazing log fire.

The younger of my visitors has been troubled with a severe and worsening cough for some years. She was eventually diagnosed with bronchiectasis, where the airways become enlarged and blocked with sputum.

It’s linked to lung damage from a number of causes, but in this patient’s case it was whooping cough as a child. Whooping cough is a highly contagious infection caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis. It can be dangerous for the very young and, until a vaccine became available, it claimed many lives — 3,000 children in the UK in 1941 alone.

This led to what now seem rather desperate measures. At the time it was noted that children living close to gasworks had a lower incidence of the disease and it was thought that the vapours might be therapeutic.

My visitor with the cough said she clearly remembered being taken for a visit to the local gasworks in the early Thirties. And my other visitor described her own visit to a gasworks in early childhood for the same reason.

Such history reminds us of the great value of childhood immunisation programmes, which commenced shortly after the NHS was created in 1948.

But we must not be complacent about this disease. Indeed, as the protection from childhood fades over time, some adults may suffer a mild version of whooping cough (characterised by coughing lasting weeks or months after a minor flu-like illness).

And it remains dangerous for babies. As the vaccines aren’t offered until children are six weeks old, their mothers are advised to have the vaccine during pregnancy so their protective antibodies can cross the placenta. Please do take up the offer.