Whooping cough is on the rise in California again, with more cases being reported in the first five months of the year than in all of 2013.
Whooping cough is on the rise in California again, with more cases being reported in the first five months of the year than in all of 2013.
The latest figures concern state health department officials who say they expect cases of the persistent and sometimes deadly cough to continue to rise.
The California Department of Public Health said it has received reports of 2,649 cases of pertussis from Jan. 1 to May 27. More than 800 cases were reported in April alone, the highest monthly count since the 2010 epidemic, when a total of 9,159 cases were reported. Officials say the disease peaks every three to five years.
The Bay Area is front and center: Sonoma County leads the state with 410 cases, while other Bay Area counties posted high figures, including Santa Clara County with 123 cases; 98 in Marin County; 89 in Contra Costa County; and 87 in Alameda County.
Health officials point to a number of reasons for this: the public not sufficiently seeking out the available immunizations, waning immunity and more aggressive detection as reasons behind the spike in whooping cough cases. They also note that infants too young to be fully immunized remain most vulnerable to severe and fatal cases of pertussis. Sixty-six of the hospitalized cases to date this year have been among children 4 months old or younger. Two infants have died so far, one in Riverside County and the other in Placer County. Ten infant deaths were reported in 2010.
“As an important preventive measure, we recommend that pregnant women receive a pertussis vaccine booster during the third trimester of each pregnancy and that infants be vaccinated as soon as possible,” Dr. Ron Chapman, the state’s public health director, said in a statement.
Added Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County’s health officer: “Even if a woman has had the vaccine before, if she is pregnant, she needs to get it again to protect her infant.”
Booster shots for pertussis are critical because, unlike some other vaccine-preventable diseases, neither the pertussis disease nor the vaccine offers lifelong immunity.
“You have to be extraordinarily persistent in terms of reminding parents to have their children immunized, and for whatever reason, they are delaying or deciding not to,” said Sherri Willis, spokeswoman for the Alameda County Public Health Department. As a result, she said, parents “are putting their children and other children in classroom and social settings at risk.”
Health officials say the symptoms of pertussis vary by age. For children, a typical case of pertussis starts with a cough and runny nose for one to two weeks. The cough then worsens, and children may have rapid coughing spells that end with a whooping sound.
Young infants may not have typical pertussis symptoms and may have no apparent cough. Parents may describe episodes in which the infant’s face turns red or purple. For adults, pertussis may simply be a cough that persists for several weeks.
“We’re only as good as our immunizations. If the immunization rates are high, then you have community protection against those diseases,” said Willis of Alameda County. “When it begins to dip, it makes a difference.”