Even grandparents urgently need to be vaccinated against whooping cough and co

Grandma and Grandpa: Vaccination recommendations for expectant grandparents
When a child announces, not only mother and father, but also prospective grandparents should check their vaccination status. The intensive contact with the initially unvaccinated grandchildren could otherwise be dangerous, warn experts.

More and more whooping cough infections
The number of whooping cough infections in Germany rose to a new high last year. The childhood disease, which also occurs in adults, is especially dangerous for infants. Transmission of the highly contagious infectious disease is by droplet infection. "Adolescents and adults play an important role as carriers of infants," writes the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on its website. They should also be vaccinated if necessary to avoid infection.

Announces a grandchild, prospective grandparents should check their vaccination status. For example, they should be vaccinated against whooping cough, experts suggest. (Image: fovito / fotolia.com)

Grandparents should check their vaccination status
Even for budding grandmothers and grandfathers: If a grandchild announces, necessarily check their own vaccination status. Because the intensive contact with the still unvaccinated grandchildren should be as safe as possible for both sides.

Wiebke Hellenbrand of the Department of Vaccination Prevention of the RKI said in a message from the news agency dpa: "Since whooping cough may be life-threatening in infants, expectant grandparents should necessarily be vaccinated against it."

According to the expert, you can not immediately protect the little ones themselves. They depend on the people around them being vaccinated.

Every three years for triple vaccination
"Against whooping cough is inoculated together with tetanus and diphtheria as a triple vaccine," explained Hellenbrand.

Because adults of all ages should be vaccinated every ten years against tetanus and diphtheria anyway, this triple vaccination makes sense. And even if less than ten years ago one of the diseases was already vaccinated individually.

For grandparents who are over 60 years old, Hellenbrand also recommends an annual flu vaccine and a vaccine against pneumococci.

"Pneumococci are the main cause of bacterial pneumonia in Europe," the RKI wrote in a statement on the revised vaccination recommendations of the Standing Vaccination Commission at the Robert Koch Institute (STIKO)..

According to this, children under the age of two, people over the age of 60, as well as children, adolescents and adults with certain underlying diseases, for example persons with immunodeficiency or with chronic diseases of the heart or lungs, are at particular risk. (Ad)