Clark County is still in the midst of a whooping cough outbreak, and health officials are hoping the new school year won’t mean even more diagnoses.
Through Sept. 24, Clark County Public Health has recorded 319 cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, compared with just 34 cases during the same time period last year.
“This is almost a tenfold increase from last year, so we are definitely in an outbreak situation,” Derel Glashower, a public health epidemiologist, told the county board of health this week.
The county’s whooping cough numbers are mirroring those of 2012, when more than 5,000 people were sickened statewide. During the same time period in 2012, Clark County recorded 336 cases of whooping cough.
In 2012, whooping cough numbers spiked in the spring, dropped off in the summer and began ticking up again when kids returned to school in the fall. That pattern has public health officials keeping a close eye on new whooping cough diagnoses.
“We saw a lot of transmission in schools earlier this year, and it’s our hope that that doesn’t happen again,” Glashower said.
Whooping cough is an illness spread through respiratory secretions such as coughing and sneezing. For the first few weeks, people with whooping cough can be contagious but only have seemingly harmless symptoms similar to those of a cold, according to health officials.
Because of that long incubation period, health officials suspect it could be several more weeks before they start receiving reports of whooping cough transmission in schools, Glashower said.
The greatest number of whooping cough cases in Clark County have been among teens 14 to 18 years old. So far, 134 teens in that age group have contracted the illness.
Those 10 to 13 years old have seen the second-highest number of cases, with 54.
Health officials have attributed the high numbers among tweens and teens to vaccine protection waning over time.
The state recommends children receive five doses of the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis) vaccine, at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 15 to 18 months and 4 to 6 years. Adolescents ages 11 to 18 and adults 19 to 64 should receive a tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis booster, commonly known as Tdap.
Pregnant women should also receive a Tdap booster during every pregnancy.
The illness is particularly dangerous, and potentially deadly, for infants. Immunization among children, teens and adults protects infants who are too young to be fully immunized, according to health officials.
In Clark County, three people have been hospitalized this year with whooping cough, including one infant. No deaths have been reported.
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