Redmond whooping cough cases prompt warning to parents
(Update: Comments from physician)
Four Redmond School District students have been diagnosed with whooping cough, also known as pertussis, prompting letters to parents from district schools, advising of possible exposure and symptoms to watch for.
School district spokesman Rainier Butler said Wednesday that Deschutes County Public Health had advised of the cases and “recommended with notify all RSD families about possible exposure, symptoms and prevention.”
In a letter sent home to parents on Tuesday, Vern Patrick Elementary Principal Jennifer Hesse said the illness begins as a mild upper respiratory infection and resembles a a common cold, at first.
But within two weeks, she wrote, the cough becomes more severe, including “a crowing of high-pitched whooping sound,” sometimes followed by vomiting. It can recur for one to two months and is more frequent at night.
Family Choice Urgent Care physician Dr. Terri Mucha said Wednesday that for the most part, immunizations have gotten rid of the disease.
“Whooping cough is caused by the pertussis bacteria, so antibiotics do treat it. It can be serious in the young kids or the elderly,” Mucha said. “It is something that is part of our childhood immunization, so it is something we have successfully eradicated for a while now.”
There were only two cases of whooping cough in the area last year, vs. this year’s four so far. Mucha said an increase in cases could be for a couple reasons.
“There’s two reasons why we’re seeing it again,” she said. “One is we’re having a wave of people choosing not to be vaccinated or not vaccinate their kids. Second is we’re noticing that your childhood vaccinations wane when we get older, and so in the 30 and 40 (year-old) adult age group we’re starting to see they need a booster for their pertussis.”
“We worry about the infants, so if anybody has an infant in their household, and they’re exposed to pertussis or it’s in their household, they’re going to want to either consider prophylactic anitibiotics or getting treated,” Mucha added.
The best prevention against pertussis is up-to-date immunizations for Dtap/Tdap. A booster of Tdap is recommended at age 11. But Hesse noted the vaccines are not 100 percent effective, and while it’s still possible to come down with pertussis, it tends to be less severe among vaccinated people.
If pertussis is suspected and antibiotics are prescribed, the child cannot return to school until they taken at least five days of the prescribed medication.
