Whooping cough outbreaks in kids could be prevented by encouraging the vaccination of the people who care for them, a new report finds.
The team of researchers conducted a study of Seattle babies who were infected with whooping cough.
They found that nearly half the people who lived or worked with the babies were eligible to receive a vaccine that would have protected them -- and possibly the babies, too -- from the illness.
In the Seattle area – where there is a high incidence of the disease - between 2002 and 2007, 136 out of every 100,000 infants developed whooping cough each year, on average.
Among every 100,000 U.S. infants overall, however, only 97 developed whooping cough in 2005.
Whooping cough causes uncontrollable, violent coughing, infects 30 to 50 million people a year globally and kills about 300,000, mostly children in developing countries.
Regular outbreaks in developed countries may be due to some parents’ reluctance to vaccinate their children.
The more unimmunized people there are in a community, the more likely there are to be outbreaks.
One recent whooping cough outbreak in California has affected more than 6,400 people and killed at least 10 infants.
None of the infants in Seattle died from whooping cough, but nearly half were hospitalized. Among those hospitalized, 1 in 5 needed to be in an intensive care unit.
