(Erin Mulvaney, Houston Chronicle)
A spike of whooping cough cases in Texas and around the nation has alarmed experts who fear the cause may be a waning immunity to the vaccine.
The Texas Department of State Health Services is urging people to get immunized after confirming six deaths and 1,153 cases as of Aug. 31 from pertussis, commonly known as the whooping cough. Texas’ death toll accounts for nearly half of the deaths from the disease nationwide so far this year. Infants under 2 months of age are at the highest risk, accounting for five of Texas’ deaths this year.
“It’s a really nasty illness,” said Dr. Melanie Mouzoon, a pediatrician at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. “There are more cases now than any time in the United States since the 1950s across the nation.”
Whooping cough is a contagious bacterial illness that can lead to severe coughing, named after the “whoop” sound that children make when they try to breathe during a severe coughing spell. It may cause pneumonia, bruised ribs, collapsed lungs, increased urination, seizures, infections of the brain and death.
“It starts out with cold-like symptoms, but the cough can last up to five months, causing the Chinese to call it the “100-day cough,” Mouzoon said.
Health experts have said that the reason for an increase in cases across the nation may be caused by a combination of a less robust vaccine, used for pertussis since 1991, as well as an increase in the number of people not getting vaccinated.
In 2012, most states have reported more cases of pertussis infection compared with last year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. This year has seen a spike, even though whooping cough has generally been increasing for years. As of Aug. 18, more than 23,000 cases had been reported across the United States, including 13 deaths, according to the CDC.
(Read the rest of this story at Houston Chronicle)
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