‘Cocooning’ reduces whooping cough risk in infants

Vaccinating parents of newborn infants against pertussis provides moderate protection against the infectious disease in young infants, a study has shown. This targeted vaccination strategy, called cocooning, has been recommended for more than a decade, but its uptake has been limited, absent evidence of its field effectiveness, Helen E. Quinn, PhD, from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, and the Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney, Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Australia, and colleagues write in an article published online September 15 in Pediatrics. To assess the effectiveness of parental vaccination in preventing pertussis among infants younger than 4 months, the investigators conducted a case-control study focusing specifically on the effect of a government-funded cocoon program during a prolonged pertussis epidemic in New South Wales, Australia, that began in 2008. The study population included 217 infants with confirmed pertussis who were younger than 4 months...