Posted Date: 6/21/2010
When Suzanne Starbuck's 3-month-old baby Sawyer started coughing until he was blue in the face, she knew something was wrong.
"It started out just like a common cold," Starbuck said.
The coughing fits came periodically, and never happened when the baby was at his pediatrician's office.
After still feeling like something was wrong, Starbuck kept bugging her son's pediatrician. She decided to videotape an episode of Sawyer coughing and wheezing for air. Within 10 minutes of sending the video's YouTube link to the doctor, the pediatrician said to admit Sawyer to Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia for observation.
Once at the hospital, Starbuck's husband showed another doctor the video of Sawyer coughing.
"Within seconds, [the doctor] said, 'That's pertussis, that's whooping cough.' So we've been [at the hospital] ever since," Starbuck said.
Sawyer is recovering well, and Starbuck and the adult members of her family have since learned about a pertussis vaccine for adults. All of them got the vaccine. She wants people to know about whooping cough and its potential danger to infants, especially as cases seem to be on the rise.
According to Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency statistics, there were 17 cases of pertussis in 2009 in the county, six of which were in infants younger than 1 year old. This year, there have been 26 cases, six of which have been infants younger than 1 year old.
Pertussis is a bacterial infection commonly known as whooping cough due to the characteristic noise patients who have it make when trying to gasp for air between coughing fits. For adults, this coughing can be annoying and persistent, but not usually deadly. But for infants, it's like trying to breathe air through a small straw, and their bodies can't always handle it.
Children are routinely vaccinated for pertussis at ages 2 months, 4 months and 6 months. They receive pertussis boosters until they are around 4 or 5 years old, said Dr. Daniel Boken, an infectious-disease specialist with Kaweah Delta Medical Center.
What has been discovered over the years is that childhood pertussis vaccines wear off, making adults susceptible to it — including those who are most likely to have babies that they could expose to the disease.
"We had not immunized older children and adults because the vaccine that was available caused too many side affects, and it wasn't clear if there was much benefit in vaccinating those people," Boken said.
Since then, a new vaccine has been developing that does work well for adults. It is combined with tetanus and diphtheria into one vaccine called a Tdap, said Dr. Karen Haught, Tulare County's public health officer. She said adolescents should get a booster shot around 11 years old, and adults up to age 65 should talk to a doctor about getting the vaccine. The vaccine is not approved by the Federal Drug Administration for people older than 65.
She said people who do not get their children vaccinated for whooping cough are putting others at risk.
"The more people who are susceptible, the more people there are who can become sick and pass it on," she said.
Haught also recommended that parents with babies keep the children out of crowds and away from anyone who is coughing.
BY HILLARY S. MEEKS • hmeeks@visalia.gannett.com • June 21, 2010
Visalia Times Delta
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