Whooping Cough On the Rise

July 14, 2004 -- No longer a distant memory from the Great Depression, whooping cough has made an alarming resurgence in the United States.

Current infant vaccinations may no longer be enough, since immunity against the disease seems to wear off at adolescence, and the government is now considering a booster shot to help fight the often deadly illness.

Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious bacterial infection characterized by violent coughing fits, gasps for air that resemble "whoop" sounds, and vomiting.

The symptoms can last for up to two months, and while an antibiotic is available to prevent spread of the disease, "it won't shorten the illness in the person already infected," says Trudy Murphy, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Complications from the disease can include pneumonia, hernia and physical lung damage.

While incidence of the disease plunged following development of the vaccine in the 1940s, numbers have been steadily increasing since the 1970s. A preliminary CDC count estimated more than 11,000 pertussis cases in the past year, an increase of more than 2,000 from the previous year and the highest count recorded in 30 years.

Regional outbreaks have been reported across the country, from New Hampshire and Vermont to Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Whooping cough is often fatal to young babies. While older patients generally recover, they are the major source of infection for vulnerable infants. According to the CDC, the number of infants younger than 5 months reported with whooping cough grew from about 600 a year in the early 1980s to about 1,700 a year at the end of the 1990s.

Children are supposed to begin an immunization series against pertussis at 2, 4, and 6 months to confer protection, with two additional doses until their 6th birthdays. But Dr. Stephen Aronoff, chair of pediatrics at Temple University School of Medicine, says that he sees "a large number" of children above 6 months with the disease, a sign of "decreased acceptance of the vaccine by parents."