Once thought to be a disease that only afflicted children, whooping cough cases are now increasingly common among adolescents and adults. With two vaccines developed to protect adults against the disease, whooping cough has once more become an important focus of public health. Research just released shows these new vaccines are highly effective and could help reverse the growing number of whooping cough cases.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, nearly doubled between 2003 and 2004. If you have had a chronic, hacking cough that lasted for weeks, you too might well have had pertussis, or whooping cough.
Dr. Andrew Campbell, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, says, “An adult or an adolescent who experiences whooping cough will have the very characteristic paroxysms or episodes of coughing. These may be very severe and last for weeks. In extreme cases, children may also experience apnea, where they stop breathing all together, which can cause death if not treated immediately.”

Currently, 95 percent of children get the three doses of the DTP vaccine, which provides combined protection against diptheria, tetanus and pertussis. The vaccine is intended to protect infants who are not yet completely immunized and very susceptible to this potentially deadly disease.

Older kids and adults, until now, were only getting the Td booster. Vaccination against pertussis wasn’t included because whooping cough has traditionally been thought a childhood disease.
But experts say that the near doubling of pertussis case numbers—nearly 19,000 in 2004-- were an indication that something needed to be done before whooping cough became widespread among adults. Research showed that almost 2/3rds of all cases of whooping cough are in persons aged ten or older.

Just last month, the FDA approved the first booster shot for adolescents, called Boostrix, for those between 10 and 18 years of age. Last week, Adacel, the second of two booster shots against whooping cough was approved, for both adults and teenagers.
The latest research in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that indeed, Adacel works very well in protecting teens and adults from pertussis. It was not found to have any side effects.
The most common side effect is pain at the injection site, with around one person in five experiencing redness and swelling. Less than 0.001% of adolescents get a high fever, and it’s even less common in adults.

The FDA agrees. It reports that Adacel’s side effects were comparable to those of tetanus boosters, including injection-site pain and low fevers, although adolescents reported those complaints more often with Adacel.

Severe cases of whooping cough may require hospitalization and respiratory support. There is no medicine to cure whooping cough but antibiotics are often used to reduce the spread of the disease to others and to treat secondary infections such as pneumonia, which are often the cause of deaths.

Hopefully, this new vaccine in adults will ensure that these cases won’t become commonplace again. “I think that the two new whooping cough vaccines coming on the market are very exciting. This is the first time that we will actually be able to make an effective bent in the spread of pertussis among adolescents and adults,” says Dr. Campbell.

A CDC advisory committee is expected to add the adolescent pertussis booster to its official vaccination schedule later this month. CDC officials say they expect that the first priority would be giving the boosters to day-care providers, parents of infants and health workers, since keeping them well would in turn protect infants.

Adacel will cost around $22, roughly $15 more than the tetanus-diphtheria booster alone.

For more information on this vaccine and pertussis, go to:

www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/Parents- Guide/default.htm

www.909shot.com

www.aap.org

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