This comes at a time when New South Wales is experiencing a whooping cough epidemic, with NSW Health warning there has been a large increase in the numbers of cases diagnosed in 2009.

A Health Notice states that Macquarie University has received notification of a confirmed diagnosis of whooping cough on campus. The university warns all staff and students that the bacteria known as Bordetella Pertussis, is highly contagious.

It is spread by droplets from coughing or sneezing and can be spread for up to three weeks after the onset of the cough. Persons at risk include those who are not vaccinated, those who have been in contact with an infected person but particularly babies, young children and the elderly. They provide information on how to avoid contracting the illness and the symptoms to be aware of.

Readers of my other blog will recall I recently did a Dr Rachie Reports on the anti-vax movement in Australia and used the death of a 4 week old baby girl as an example of the importance of being correctly vaccinated.

If you are at risk of contracting whooping cough it is recommended you get a booster shot of the vaccine. Or contact your Doctor / Health Care provider, local public health or community health unit – look under the NSW Government Pages in the white pages directory for numbers.

More information on whooping cough can be found here at the New South Wales department of health website.

Thanks to Johann-Heinrich Schönfeldt from Macquarie Skeptics for the tip-off.

A FOUR-WEEK-OLD girl in northern NSW has died in intensive care after contracting whooping cough, sparking official alarm over a worsening epidemic of the disease.

Free booster shots are being offered to new parents, grandparents and carers of young children in the state in a bid to protect babies too young to have had immunisations of their own.

Health officials are also calling on doctors to bring forward new babies’ first whooping cough jabs. The immunisations are usually given in three doses, at two, four and six months, but NSW Health is asking GPs and parents to consider bringing the first shot forward to six weeks as a result of the latest death.

NSW Health officials said in a statement last night that the baby girl was admitted to an unnamed hospital on the state’s north coast last week, but died on Monday.

It is believed to be the first case of a baby dying from whooping cough in NSW since at least 2000, and nationally since 2004.

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Babies of four weeks are too young to be immunised for whooping cough, however they are more likely to catch it if other people around them are not. This is a very sad example of the damage done by the likes of The Australian Vaccination Network. I blogged about this recently and reported on it for The Skeptic Zone podcast number 19.

More on this story as news comes to hand.

What a tragedy.

Wake up Meryl Dorey.