Whooping Cough - ไอกรน

[grazer]

This post might also belong in the Health forum, but anyway.

My parents in law are coming to visit us in Australia for the birth of our first baby. It has been suggested that we check on whooping cough (pertussis) vaccination, but I'm not sure if we've got the right Thai words for it. My wife seems to think ไอกรน just means cough, but that is the word in my English - Thai dictionary.

Is there a better word for whooping cough in Thai? On the other hand, if we just tell them to get a pertussis vaccination and write it down for them, will the doctor understand?

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Rionoir]

A doctor should understand the English as they are required in Thailand to pass a certain level of English according to a doctor friend of mine. He is a dermatologist, and even he does know all the names of medical conditions and things in English without any problem.

[SoftWater]

My thai-english dictionary has ไอหอบ but I'm inclined to think that you have it right with

[N] โรคไอกรน S.pertussis

(NECTEC Lexitron 2 EN-TH)

I've had two kids here and have visited many doctors all over the place. Doctors' level of English in Thailand, as Rionoir says, is very good. Due to the difficulties of pronunciation, you may find they recognise the word 'pertussis' better than whooping cough. In either case, I'd be very surprised if they didn't know what you were talking about (and if that turned out to be the case, switch to another hospital ASAP).

Congratulations and best of luck!

[p.s. apologies if this post appears twice - I thought I'd posted it once already, but it seems to have disappeared...maybe my age... ]

[Rionoir]

It's not just you SW... I have been thinking my posts keep turning up missing ever since they started tinkering with the forum software. LoL