Whooping cough: new maternal vaccination stakeholder communications toolkit | Primary care latest updates

As you may be aware, one of UKHSA’s responsibilities is collecting numbers of cases of notifiable diseases (including whooping cough, clinically known as pertussis).

UKHSA publish analyses of local and national trends on a regular basis. In the years since monitoring began, they have seen a huge decline in whooping cough cases from peak years exceeding 100,000 cases annually in the 1950s.

Whooping cough is a cyclical disease that regularly peaks every 3 to 5 years. The team are, unfortunately, seeing increasing rates of whooping cough in the first quarter of 2024 and expect these increasing rates to last for several months.

UKHSA are publishing epidemiological data monthly, with the next data publication scheduled for Thursday 9 May 2024. This is expected to further illustrate the rise in case numbers. The data publication will also be accompanied by a UKHSA press release on the day and activity on their social media channels to raise awareness of whooping cough and the vaccine offers, with a particular focus on the maternal vaccine offer.

UKHSA have published a new maternal vaccination stakeholder communications toolkit to support stakeholders to explain and promote the NHS vaccination programme to pregnant women. This currently focusses on the whooping cough vaccine offer and will be updated with information on seasonal vaccine offers in the future.

It contains background information, statistics, key messages, social media assets and copy and links to useful information which help raise awareness of whooping cough, its signs and symptoms and the vaccine offers.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss any aspect of this email or the toolkit please email annemarie.senior@ukhsa.gov.uk.