Originally published January 15 2006
California's whooping cough cases at the highest level in 30 years
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Celia Woodfill, an epidemiologist with the state Department of Health Services, announced that the total number of whooping cough cases for this year is 2,169, which is triple the number from the previous year.
California is in the midst of a significant outbreak of whooping cough, with the number of cases at the highest point in 30 years, leading to at least seven deaths of babies, according to public health officials.
Many parents think of whooping cough as a disease that disappeared decades ago after vaccinations became routine in the 1940s.
But the illness has been slowly on the rise in the United States for two decades, in part because adolescents frequently outgrow their immunity.
"When I first heard it, I thought it was impossible," said Jeanne Huybrechts, principal of the middle school campus at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, where three students recently were diagnosed with the illness.
"This was my first experience with it, and I've been at the school since 1989."
Whooping cough, formally called pertussis, is a bacterial infection that causes intense coughing spells that often end with a "whoop" sound as a patient struggles to inhale.
In some cases, the cough is so intense it leads to vomiting.
Particularly in young children, the disease can lead to other infections, including pneumonia or encephalitis, and often requires hospitalization.
Because pertussis can be hard to diagnose among adolescents and adults, health officials suggest keeping anyone with a persistent cough away from babies who have not yet been fully vaccinated.
The number of cases nationwide reached a low point in the late 1970s and has been steadily rising since, making whooping cough the only disease for which a childhood vaccine is routinely recommended that is on the rise in the United States.
This year, federal health officials began recommending a booster shot for teens and adults.
In addition, some children remain vulnerable because they do not receive all the vaccinations that public health officials recommend --- at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 15 to 18 months and 4 to 6 years.
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