Whooping Cough

Public health officials are warning adults and adolescents to get booster shots in the wake of an unusually large number of cases of whooping cough this year around the nation and in Maryland. More than 20,000 cases of the respiratory disease were reported in the first seven months of the year in the United States, almost 21/2 times the number in all of last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency says there are likely many more cases that are not reported.

A Baltimore County teacher has been diagnosed with a probable case of pertussis, better known as whooping cough, school and health officials say. The fifth-grade teacher at Harford Hills Elementary School in Carney was sent to the hospital Monday after complaining she felt ill. The school sent home a letter informing parents to keep an eye out for symptoms of the disease, which include a low fever, runny nose, vomiting and a distinctive cough...

A Baltimore County teacher has been diagnosed with a probable case of pertussis, better known as whooping cough, school and health officials say. The fifth-grade teacher at Harford Hills Elementary School in Carney was sent to the hospital Monday after complaining she felt ill. The school sent home a letter informing parents to keep an eye out for symptoms of the disease, which include a low fever, runny nose, vomiting and a distinctive cough...

As children, our parents take us to the doctor every year, like clockwork. As we get older, regular checkups often fall by the wayside. But they shouldn't. For adults, checkups, preventative screenings and vaccinations are vital to living healthy, happy lives. According to Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director for adult immunization at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, numerous screening procedures and vaccines are available to adults, but they are often underused. "National vaccination rates are low," she says, "even for vaccines that have been recommended for many years.

Officials at the National Institutes of Health said yesterday that a new whooping cough vaccine made by North American Vaccine Inc. of Beltsville appears to be safe.The results take the company one step closer to being able to market the product."We think this is an enormous improvement," said Dr. Charles Lowe, associate director for special projects at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.The federal government is interested in finding a substitute for the vaccine now used to fight pertussis, a highly infectious childhood disease also known as whooping cough.

BETHESDA -- North American Vaccine's new whooping cough vaccine received a mixed reception from a governmental advisory panel yesterday. Experts said they think it's safe and effective, yet don't know how effective."

Cases of whooping cough, once among the most feared of all childhood diseases, are climbing in Maryland and elsewhere partly because of parents' complacency.Although public health authorities do not foresee epidemics approaching the huge ones of old, doctors say many infants and young children are needlessly at risk because they are slow to get their full complement of shots."The majority of the children who are getting this disease and are being hospitalized are inadequately immunized," said Dr. Neal A. Halsey, a specialist in pediatric infections at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

It started out much like any winter cold. But, soon enough, 16-year-old Zachary Graham couldn't stop coughing. And coughing. When doctors finally diagnosed Zach a few weeks later, they told him that his hacking fits - which sometimes made it hard to breathe and sleep - were caused by a disease the teenager thought he couldn't get: whooping cough. "When I was diagnosed, my parents and I were surprised that I had it because I had been vaccinated against the disease," said Graham, a high school junior from Sunapee, N.H., whose illness kept him off the ski slopes and away from his friends.

North American Vaccine Inc. yesterday won a long-awaited Food and Drug Administration approval to market its new whooping cough vaccine for children in the United States.The approval, which took the Beltsville-based company almost two years to land, marks the first U.S. product approval for the 12-year-old biotechnology company."This is really big for us," said Stephen M. Keith, vice president for sales and marketing for North American. "Clearly, the U.S. is a big market, and we're confident the vaccine will do well gaining market share."

A Maryland company has won marketing approval in Sweden for a new, powerful vaccine to protect children against whooping cough and, as a result, now has an edge in the race to grab a share of the estimated $800 million U.S. and European market for the new-generation vaccines.North American Vaccine, based in Beltsville, won approval yesterday to market its vaccine for whooping cough, the dreaded disease also known as pertussis.On news of the approval, the company's stock rose $1.125 per share to $15.50, a 12-month high.

Public health officials are warning adults and adolescents to get booster shots in the wake of an unusually large number of cases of whooping cough this year around the nation and in Maryland. More than 20,000 cases of the respiratory disease were reported in the first seven months of the year in the United States, almost 21/2 times the number in all of last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency says there are likely many more cases that are not reported.

Maryland's children would be required to get more vaccines before attending school under a proposal being considered by state health officials. But doctors and state health officials said most children are already getting the shots and that they are looking to regulate the process. Under the proposed guidelines, pupils would be required to get a chicken pox booster before starting kindergarten. The chicken pox vaccine is now required to be given to babies. Seventh-graders would be required to get the Tdap vaccine, which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough.

In an effort to increase the immunization rates for school-age children, the Harford County Health Department will be holding early Back-to School Immunization Clinics for uninsured and underinsured students. Each year, the Harford County Health Department holds Back-to School Immunization Clinics to help students become up-to-date with their vaccinations. This year, clinics will be on Tuesdays throughout July and August at the Edgewood office, 1321 Woodbridge Station Way. Morning and evening times are available and the public is invited to call 410-612-1774 to schedule an appointment.

When an unvaccinated child in Dr. Daniel Levy's practice came down with whooping cough this year, the Owings Mills pediatrician made a decision: He would no longer see patients whose parents refused to have them immunized against that disease or others, such as measles and meningitis. The risks posed to his other patients were too great, Levy reasoned. And he felt he couldn't give adequate care to children whose parents rejected some of his most basic advice: That routine childhood vaccines are safe and are the key to preventing diseases that used to kill many before they could reach adulthood.

Whooping cough sounds like one of those old-fashioned diseases that only the heroines of Victorian novels get. But whooping cough, or pertussis, is a serious and sometimes fatal illness that has been on the rise in the United States in recent years, says Virginia Keane, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and president of the Maryland chapter of the Academy of Pediatrics. What is whooping cough? A bacterial infection caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis.

It sounds like some medieval baby-killer that must have disappeared when husbands first began boiling water as their wives went into labor. But 25 percent of pregnant women in the United States carry a common, potentially deadly bacterium called group B streptococcus (or GBS) that can infect their babies during childbirth or soon after. Although doctors frequently administer antibiotics during labor to prevent them, GBS infections kill or injure several thousand babies each year - within hours or weeks of their birth.

Maryland's children would be required to get more vaccines before attending school under a proposal being considered by state health officials. But doctors and state health officials said most children are already getting the shots and that they are looking to regulate the process. Under the proposed guidelines, pupils would be required to get a chicken pox booster before starting kindergarten. The chicken pox vaccine is now required to be given to babies. Seventh-graders would be required to get the Tdap vaccine, which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough.

When an unvaccinated child in Dr. Daniel Levy's practice came down with whooping cough this year, the Owings Mills pediatrician made a decision: He would no longer see patients whose parents refused to have them immunized against that disease or others, such as measles and meningitis. The risks posed to his other patients were too great, Levy reasoned. And he felt he couldn't give adequate care to children whose parents rejected some of his most basic advice: That routine childhood vaccines are safe and are the key to preventing diseases that used to kill many before they could reach adulthood.

It started out much like any winter cold. But, soon enough, 16-year-old Zachary Graham couldn't stop coughing. And coughing. When doctors finally diagnosed Zach a few weeks later, they told him that his hacking fits - which sometimes made it hard to breathe and sleep - were caused by a disease the teenager thought he couldn't get: whooping cough. "When I was diagnosed, my parents and I were surprised that I had it because I had been vaccinated against the disease," said Graham, a high school junior from Sunapee, N.H., whose illness kept him off the ski slopes and away from his friends.

Vaccine shortages are forcing pediatricians to delay giving shots against diseases from tetanus to whooping cough, raising concerns that the nation could lose ground in the fight against childhood illnesses. The trouble started last summer when doctors had difficulty replenishing supplies of tetanus vaccine. Production problems have since triggered shortages of immunizations against chickenpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, mumps, German measles and pneumococcal disease. For now, pediatricians say the shortages have bedeviled staffers who have had to keep track of patients who did not get shots during scheduled visits, and parents who have had to bring their youngsters back to make up missed shots.