§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) with the present levels of vaccination, what estimate he can give of the risk of a child developing whooping cough if: (a) the child is vaccinated and (b) the child is not vaccinated:
(2) what estimate the Joint Committee on Vaccination has made of the future 281W likely risk of a child developing whooping cough if the whooping cough vaccination programme were to be ended;
(3) if he will give figures for the last 20 years for the number of cases of whooping cough: (a) in children who have been immunised against it, (b) in children who have not been immunised, (c) in all children and (d) babies under the age of six months.
§ Dr. OwenRecent evidence suggests that up to 95 per cent. of children immunised by current vaccines are protected against whooping cough, while a recent survey conducted by the Public Health Laboratory Service showed that attack rates are from two to four times higher in unvaccinated children. I am advised that ending the whooping cough vaccination programme could be expected to increase very greatly the incidence of the disease.
Notifications of whooping cough do not differentiate between people who have and who have not been immunised. Figures for children under six months are available only since 1969, and figures for people up to and including age 20 are not readily available before that date, but as the figures for 1969 onwards show, the great majority of cases occur in children.
NOTIFICATION OF WHOOPING COUGH (ENGLAND AND WALES) Year All ages Aged 0–20 Aged under 6 months 1956 … 92,396 — — 1957 … 85 004 — — 1958 … 33,384 — — 1959 … 33,208 — — 1960 … 58,030 — — 1961 … 24,469 — — 1962 … 8,343 — — 1963 … 34,733 — — 1964 … 31,609 — — 1965 … 12,903 — — 1966 … 19,386 — — 1967 … 33,530 — — 1968 … 17,367 — — 1969 … 4,991 4,857 283 1970 … 16,597 16,289 892 1971 … 16,792 16,375 976 1972 … 2,069 2,019 101 1973 … 2,437 2,380 127 1974 … 16,225 15,783 863 1975 … 8,911 8,582 516
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give figures showing the trend of deaths from whooping cough over the last 20 years.
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§ Dr. OwenThe numbers of deaths and death rates from whooping cough in England and Wales for years 1955 to 1975 are as follows:
Numbers Years of age Rates Under 1 1 to 4 5 and over Under 1 per million live births 1 to 4 per million population 1955 60 22 6 89.8 8.4 1956 63 23 9 90.0 8.8 1957 68 16 4 94.0 6.1 1958 18 7 3 24.3 2.6 1959 16 9 1 21.4 3.3 1960 26 8 4 33.1 2.9 1961 19 7 2 23.4 2.4 1962 18 5 3 21.5 1.7 1963 29 6 1 34.0 2.0 1964 32 9 3 36.5 2.9 1965 15 6 — 17.4 1.8 1966 22 1 — 25.9 0.3 1967 24 3 2 28.8 0.9 1968 15 — — 18.3 — 1969 4 1 1 5.0 0.3 1970 13 1 1 16.6 0.3 1971 22 3 2 28.1 1.0 1972 2 — 1 2.8 — 1973 2 — 1 3.0 — 1974 12 1 — 18.8 0.3 1975* 11 1 — 18.3 0.4 * Provisional.