Vietnam has successfully produced a vaccine against pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, for pregnant women to minimize the risk of newborns catching the disease, the Ministry of Science and Technology said on May 23.

Vietnamese expectant mothers will be injected vaccines against pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus for the first time to boost immunity and prevent pertussis transmission from mother to child.

The project, as part of the bilateral cooperation deal between Vietnam and Belgium, was implemented from 2012 to 2016 and headed by Associate Professor Dr. Hoang Thi Thu Ha from the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

The study, published in the Vaccine Journal by Elsevier, was conducted in Bac Ly, Duc Ly and Nhan Chinh Communes, Ly Nhan District, Ha Nam Province with two groups. 

Group 1 included 18 to 36-week pregnant women from 18 to 40 years old and group 2 consisted of healthy babies born by the women in group 1. 

These babies were injected vaccines, had blood samples taken and monitored until they are two years old.

There are about 50 million cases of pertussis worldwide a year, 95% of them in developing countries, resulting in some 300,000 deaths in under-six-month-old children who are not vaccinated.

In Vietnam, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccines have been included in the Expanded Program on Immunization for over 30 years and the number of pertussis cases per 100,000 people has decreased from 90 in 1981 to 0.06 in 2013. 

However, pertussis remains a serious disease as the increasing incidence of pertussis in newborns.

SGT