Whooping cough outbreak: How to keep kids safe

The Centers for Disease Control is reporting more than 18,000 cases in the U.S. this year of the bacterial lung infection known as whooping cough

/ CBS

(AP) ATLANTA - Whooping cough was once a terrible menace to U.S. children, with hundreds of thousands of cases reported annually. Then a vaccine drove cases down, and the illness became thought of as rare and even antiquated.

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But it never totally disappeared, and now there's been a spike in cases.

With nearly 18,000 cases so far this year, health officials say this is shaping up to be the worst national epidemic in more than 50 years for the highly contagious disease.

Worrisome numbers have been reported in more than a dozen states.

What's a parent to do?

Some advice:

First step: Make sure your child is up-to-date on vaccination against whooping cough, or pertussis. There are five doses, with the first shot at age 2 months and the last between 4 and 6 years. A booster shot is recommended around 11 or 12. It's part of routine childhood shots that also protect against diphtheria and tetanus.

Protect yourself: Adults who are around kids should get a whooping cough booster shot so that they don't spread it to young children, who are the most vulnerable to whooping cough. Nine young children have died so far this year. The booster for teens and adults, approved in 2005, was combined with the tetanus booster that adults are supposed to get every 10 years or so.

Vaccine not perfect: No vaccine is 100 percent effective, and its ability to fend off infections wanes as years pass. But even diminished vaccine protection is better than nothing, and usually people who are vaccinated have milder cases. In this current epidemic, experts are investigating whether the childhood shots and the booster offer less lasting protection than previously thought.

Watch for symptoms: The illness typically starts with cold-like symptoms that can include a runny nose, congestion, low-grade fever and a mild cough. Infants may have a pause in breathing, called apnea. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises parents to see a doctor if they or their children develop prolonged or severe coughing fits, vomiting and exhaustion.

The name comes from the sound children make as they gasp for breath. Here's what it sounds like.

The disease is spread through coughing or sneezing. Whooping cough is treated with antibiotics, the earlier the better.

[Martha12345]

How to protect your kids ? Stay out of Washington State ! It's a serious problem here and has been for several years. The influx of migrant workers seems to be the cause of the reoccurring problem.

[jdsmom]

The only reason my son has not had the pertussis vaccine is because he is allergic to it. He had a seizure with the first dose at 2 mos. However, all of my other children have been vaccinated. For me, whatever is in the vaccine is worth the risk, if it prevents my children from getting a preventable disease that could kill them. As parent's we have to protect our children. I've heard all the stories about vaccines and what they do and don't put in them. In the end, I don't want my children to get those illnesses that killed countless children before the vaccines were available.

[lilbear177]

Perhaps you pro-vaccinate folks didn't read the facts in the article or on the disclosure that comes with the pertussis vaccine (if you were even offered one at the doctor's office). It takes 5 doses to become immune taking up to 4 years. The greatest risk of death is to babies up to the age of 1, by which time the vaccine is not effective.

Un-vaccinated people may get sick from people who already have the illness, but they pose no more risk of infection to a vaccinated person than if that vaccinated person were exposed to the same sick person.

How we protect our bodies from illness is a personal choice and can be accomplished using many simple techniques e.g. washing hands. Anyone advocating mandatory injections of questionable substances might as well be poster child for dictatorship. I fight tooth and nail for the right to put in my body and my child's body what I feel is right...that includes your right to vaccinate, and my right not to vaccinate. But you SHOULD question vaccinations, medications, and procedures with your own research in addition to your doctor's opinion. Your health is in your OWN hands.

[erasmus111]

"Your health is in your OWN hands."

That's right, it is. I chose to get my children vaccinated because I didn't want them to go through what I did when I had Whooping cough. I've had numerous childhood diseases, but Whooping cough was the worst. It was a nightmare. I wished I could go to sleep and not wake up. Children can DIE from this disease. Why would you want to take a chance with their life?

And yes, you can avoid illness by simply washing your hands, but let's be realistic, most children do not wash their hands often enough. You aren't with them at school and they aren't going to be allowed to be running to the washroom every minute to wash them. Kids are always touching things and putting their hands on their face.

[Betcorbitt]

Many things can be said but I was raised to keep my mouth shut, "if II didn't have anything nice to say then say nothing at all"! Your opinion is exactly that "your opinion"! Yours is so nieve that you should keep it to yourself. The word vaccination was first used by Edward Jenner in 1796. Louis Pasteur furthered the concept through his pioneering work in microbiology. Vaccination (Latin: vacca—cow) is so named because the first vaccine was derived from a virus affecting cows—the relatively benign cowpox virus—which provides a degree of immunity to smallpox, a contagious and deadly disease. In common speech, 'vaccination' and 'immunization' in general have the same colloquial meaning. This distinguishes it from inoculation, which uses unweakened live pathogens, although in common usage either is used to refer to an immunization. The word "vaccination" was originally used specifically to describe the injection of smallpox vaccine.[5][7]
Vaccination efforts have been met with some controversy since their inception, on scientific, ethical, political, medical safety, religious, and other grounds. In rare cases, vaccinations can injure people and, in the United States, they may receive compensation for those injuries under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Early success and compulsion brought widespread acceptance, and mass vaccination campaigns were undertaken, which are credited with greatly reducing the incidence of many diseases in numerous geographic regions. Many things can cause death but a vaccanation can prevent an untimely death.

[andycutler]

If you get your child vaccinated, persoanlly watch the shot being prepared. Only let them give it if it comes from a single dose vial.

The multidose vials contain mercury and can poison your child.

The multidose vials are for adults and are not very effective at protecitng children.

Many physicians do this because the multidose vials are much cheaper.

[hypnotoad72]

They should have two lots - one for adults, one for kids.

As they are using single needles, one needle per one customer on one visit, the multidose vials' only real risk would be that of mercury, since apparently it's okay to put mercury into that type of vial but no others...

[midvale3]

Another suggestion, make any idiots who won't get their kids vaccinated home school them. The ignorance of people of the past diseases and illnesses that caused high childhood mortality are causing them to return.

[Magic-Sky-Daddy]

We now have two diseases that are becoming more prevalent as vaccination rates decrease due to irrational fears. Pertussis and measles. The states that have the lowest vaccination rates are those that also have the highest pertussis rates.

When babies start dying (9 already this year) the time has come to put an end to exemptions from vaccination except in cases where it is medically justified. And this needs to be enforced with fines, jail time and loss of medical coverage.

People who don't vaccinate themselves and their children are putting everyone their family comes into contact with at unnecessary risk.

This is the 21st century folks. No excuses for these things to happen in a technologically advanced nation.

[hypnotoad72]

Since we're sliding down to a second world status, none of us should be surprised...