Whooping Cough Epidemic Hits California
The CDC today said that six infants have died due to whooping cough in California and it seems that the state is now under the grip of the whooping cough epidemic. According to CDC, South Carolina is the only other state where whooping cough cases have exceeded the "epidemic threshold" so far.
The California health officials have already issued an official epidemic of pertussis, the medical term for whooping cough and a vaccination campaign for teens and adults of all ages has also been announced by the Californian government to check the growth of the epidemic.
"Teens and adults should be vaccinated, especially anyone who is going to have contact with infants who are too young for vaccinations," CDC epidemiologist Stacey Martin, MSc, tells WebMD. "Those California deaths were all in infants less than 3 months old. They don't have the benefit of vaccination yet, so we have to vaccinate around them," he added. Notably, the vaccine for pertussis does not give a person lifelong immunity to whooping cough. It has been observed that the outbreaks tend to occur in five-year cycles.
Pertussis is a bacterial infection and it is one of the diseases covered by the three-way DTaP (diphtheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis) vaccine. There is no separate vaccine for pertussis vaccine. The disease has been named whooping cough for the "whooping" sound, which a person suffering from the disease makes while trying to catch a breath between coughing fits. "Pertussis is a horrible disease at any age, but most severe in the youngest infants," said Dean Blumberg, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California.
