Whooping cough outbreak attacked aggressively

Page 2

A two-pronged aggressive approach is being used in the attack against an alarming outbreak of whooping cough in the province, says the provincial director of disease control.

Health workers first aggressively seek to identify people, who have come in contact with those infected with whooping cough and then ensure immunizations are brought up to date, said Dr. John Waters.

Antibiotics are also used to help suppress the spread of the germ which causes whooping cough, he said.

"When there's a community outbreak, we extend the group to whom we give (the antibiotic) Erythromycin. We try to dampen down the transmission in the community. Normally we'd just look at family household contacts. But when we've got a community outbreak, we get more aggressive and start widening the net," said Waters.

The antibiotic, if given early enough to someone infected, will prevent them from getting the disease.

It also stops those people including immunized individuals who can carry the disease from giving the disease to someone else.

The schedule for immunizing infants has been advanced in areas like Peace River where there's been a serious outbreak, he said.

Waters said whooping cough is "most dangerous" to infants under six-months-old.

"By speeding up the immunization process, we can get them immunized by three or four months of age."

Two infant deaths in recent years have been linked to whooping cough a disease which should be prevented, said Waters.

Immunization levels have dropped about ten per cent in the province because parents have become complacent, he said.

"We haven't had to deal with outbreaks of the disease we normally vaccinate against for a long time. Parents have grown up in a time when these diseases were pretty well thought to be under control.

"So the urgency of grandparents of kids, who are now being immunized, would feel because they lived through outbreaks and saw what the disease could do just isn't there for these parents," he said.

Waters said there are a very few children who have had a serious reaction to vaccines who should not be vaccinated.