Prevention is better than cure, and vaccines are the best approach to preventive medicine. Thanks to the vaccines, we hear of few infectious diseases nowadays. Vaccines have helped in eradicating some deadly infectious diseases, and reducing the incidences of many others. Among the many diseases, whooping cough is one whose incidence is drastically reduced with vaccines.
Understanding whooping cough
Whooping cough also called as pertussis is an infection of the respiratory tract (passages through which air enters and leaves the body) that spreads from person to person through cough or sneezing. Whooping cough usually begins as a cold, and subsequently turns into bouts of cough. These episodes of cough attacks can occur persistently several times a minute. Inhalation of air is accompanied by “whooping” sound due to which it is named as “whooping cough”. As the breathing becomes difficult and choked, face can turn either blue or red, and vomiting generally follows the cough episode. The frequency of cough attacks is more prevalent in the nights. Infants and children are more prone to whooping cough than older children and adults. The choking spells of whooping cough make it very difficult for infants and children to breath and feed.
Causes
Whooping cough is caused by bacterium Bordetella pertussis. In the early 20th century whooping cough was one of main causes of childhood sickness and death. After pertussis vaccine (preparation that produces immunity against pertussis) was introduced the morbidity and mortality decreased reaching its lowest by mid 1970’s.
At present 82% of all infants aged between 19-35 months are vaccinated for pertussis.
Now whooping cough is considered as a rare disease (less than 1 in 2,000) and the incidence rate in US is 1 in 36,371 or 7,405 people suffer from pertussis every year.
Symptoms
It takes 3 to 12 days for the signs and symptoms of whooping cough to appear from the time of infection. The symptoms include runny nose, nose obstruction, sneezing, eyes may become red with tears, slight fever and dry cough. After a week or two, the symptoms become severe and may produce thick mucus phlegm, vomiting, face may become red or blue, immense fatigue and infants develop the characteristic “whoop” at the end of the coughing.
Your doctor can take all the symptoms for proper diagnosis. Some special tests may be needed to help in the diagnosis of whooping cough such as swabs of your mouth, your blood samples and your chest X-ray images.
Prevention
Whooping cough can be prevented by taking pertussis vaccine which is generally given in combination with other two vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus in the infancy status.
These vaccines are given in a series of 5 injections to the children at these ages.
- 2 months
- 4 months
- 6 months
- 12 to 18 months
- 4 to 6 years
Vaccine side effects: The vaccines may cause the side effects such as fever, soreness at the site of the injection. In rare cases, severe side effects such as high fever, persistent crying and seizures, shock or coma may occur.
Booster shots
As the effect of the vaccine wanes by the age of 11, doctors recommend a booster dose to protect against pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus. To minimize the risk of transmitting the whooping cough to infants and children and also for self immunization, adults are advised to take booster shot ever 10 years.
Summary
Whooping cough is an infectious disease caused by bacterium B. pertussis. The disease is recognized by the whooping sound that accompanies the cough. This is mostly observed with infants and children. Your doctor may require swabs of your mouth, blood samples and chest X-ray images to confirm the presence or absence of whooping cough. The best way to prevent whooping cough is by taking vaccines regularly as per the regimen. Even adults can take booster doses of vaccines every 10 years to prevent from being infected and also to avoid transmitting whooping cough to other infants and children.
