New whooping cough vaccine to be developed

Researchers at Curtin University, in collaboration with The University of Western Australia (UWA), will soon be developing a new whooping cough vaccine.

To be delivered via nasal spray, the vaccine has been promised to be more effective and have fewer side effects than current vaccines.

The project’s lead researcher, Associate Professor Trilochan Mukkur from Curtin’s School of Biomedical Sciences, said whooping cough remains a serious and contagious respiratory infection.

Through an intensive vaccination campaign, the number of cases in Australia dropped from approximately 38,500 in 2011 to 26,000 in 2012,  but Associate Professor Mukkur says this number is still too high for a preventable infectious disease.

“Whooping cough is an infection that, if passed on to vulnerable babies, can be potentially fatal,” Associate Professor Mukkur said. “Currently there is a vaccine, but we are looking at improving upon it to ensure it is more effective, offers long-term protection and requires less booster doses.

“Initially, the target population for this vaccine will be adults, then adolescents and then children. Five- to nine-year-old children and 10- to 14-year-old adolescents are the biggest carriers and potential transmitters of infection to infants; so that’s where our focus is at present.”

Curtin has received $198,000 in funding from the Telethon New Children’s Hospital Research Fund to support the research over the next two years. Associate Professor Mukkur says the research should be commenced by October 2013 and ready for release in the community in five to eight years’ time.