Aussie study says whooping cough is outsmarting current vaccines

After a world-first discovery that evolving strains make changes to survive regardless of immunisation, Aussie scientists say we need a new vaccine against an extremely contagious and deadly disease that struck 1500 Queenslanders last year.

WHOOPING cough is morphing into a superbug and outsmarting current vaccines, sparking a call for a new and improved jab.

Following a world-first discovery by Australian researchers that evolving strains are making changes to survive in their host regardless of immunisation status, the scientists want to see an updated vaccine that can better protect against emerging strains, stop transmission and provide longer lasting immunity.

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In a series of studies, with the latest published in the journal Vaccine, the UNSW researchers also identified new antigens as potential vaccine targets.

The plea for a new vaccine has been backed by Catherine Hughes who watched her son Riley die a shocking death from whooping cough in 2015, at just four weeks of age. Riley was too young to be immunised.

“Whooping cough can be such a devastating disease and we know all too well about how damaging this disease can be to a tiny infant body. While the current vaccine prevents a lot of death and illness from this insidious disease, it does not control the disease well enough to eliminate it from our communities. The disease is constantly circulating, it never seems to go away and it puts little babies like Riley at risk of severe illness and death,” she said.

“We need to have the funds and resources to keep up with the disease,” Ms Hughes, director of Immunisation Foundation of Australia and founder of The Light for Riley project said.

Greg and Catherine Hughes lost their son Riley to whooping cough at just four weeks of age.

The current vaccine, widely used since 2000, targets three antigens in the bacteria of the highly contagious respiratory disease which can be fatal to infants.

The researchers encourage Australians to continue to vaccinate until an improved vaccine is developed.

All babies under six months old — in particular, newborns not protected by maternal immunisation — are at risk of catching the vaccine-preventable disease because they are either too young to be vaccinated or have not yet completed the three-dose primary vaccine course.

Australia’s whooping cough epidemic from 2008 to 2012 saw more than 140,000 cases – with a peak of almost 40,000 in 2011 – and revealed the rise of evolving strains able to evade vaccine-generated immunity.

Last year more than 1500 Queenslanders were diagnosed with whooping cough.

First author and microbiologist Dr Laurence Luu, who led the team of researchers with Professor Ruiting Lan, said whooping cough’s ability to adapt to vaccines and survival in humans might be the answer to its surprise resurgence despite Australia’s high vaccination rates.

“We found the whooping cough strains were evolving to improve their survival, regardless of whether a person was vaccinated or not, by producing more nutrient-binding and transport proteins, and fewer immunogenic proteins which are not targeted by the vaccine,” Dr Luu said.