It is difficult to imagine a situation more contagious disease that whooping cough.

For teenagers and adults, whooping coughor whooping cough, it is a great nuisance: cold symptomsfollowed by a cough that takes weeks or months to resolve. Absences from work and school are common. But for babies who have not yet been vaccinated, whooping cough can be serious, even life-threatening.

“Whooping cough has recently caused about 30 deaths a year in the U.S., almost all in children younger than three months,” says Harry Keyserling, MD, professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Emory University in Atlanta and spokesman for the American Academy. of Pediatrics. “Children this age often have serious illnesses that require hospitalization and are at high risk for complications such as pneumonia and seizures.”

Preventing whooping cough starts with recognizing how young children often contract the bacteria: from other family members. “In most cases, it is a parent or sibling who passes whooping cough to a child,” Keyserling says.

Bordetella pertussis It is a bacteria that can live in the human respiratory tract. The bacteria is easily transmitted through sneezing and coughoften from people who don’t even know they have the infection.

80% to 90% of Americans have been vaccinated against whooping cough. But whooping cough vaccine, like the natural whooping cough infection, does not provide lifetime protection. Immunity to whooping cough wanes five to ten years after the last childhood vaccine, leaving adolescents and adults susceptible to infection. People who have had whooping cough also lose their immunity.

Whooping cough infects at least 600,000 people, and perhaps more than a million people each year in the U.S. The exact number is impossible to determine because the screaming cough It is rarely recognized in previously vaccinated people.

Thanks to partial immunity from early vaccination, “their symptoms are mild, like a cold with cough”says Keyserling. “You will most likely never need or seek medical attention.” And most have no idea that their symptoms are actually whooping cough.

Still, they can and do spread the whooping cough bacteria to other people. Older children and adults are not at serious risk for infection, although “mild” whooping cough symptoms can still mean a cough that lasts more than a month, usually resulting in loss of sleep and missed days of school or work. .

The real threat, however, comes from spreading whooping cough to a very young child who is not fully vaccinated.

The whooping cough vaccine, called DTaP (for diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough), is usually given in five doses. The first four injections are administered during the first year and a half of the baby’s life: at 2, 4, 6 and between 15 and 18 months. A final dose is administered between 4 and 6 years of age.

After the third dose, children are well protected: they have 80% to 85% immunity to whooping cough. If they get whooping cough despite the vaccine, the infection is usually mild.

But during their first six months, and particularly the first two months of life before babies are vaccinated, babies are especially vulnerable to serious whooping cough infections, Keyserling tells WebMD.

For this reason, for babies with whooping cough under two months of age, severe illness is the norm. “Ninety percent will require hospitalization, one in five will develop pneumonia, and one percent will die” from whooping cough, Keyserling warns.

Deaths from whooping cough are very rare in the US. But of the 156 deaths reported to the CDC between 2000 and 2006, 120 (77%) were newborns less than 1 month old.

“Preventing transmission to all young children, but especially infants, is the number one public health issue,” says Tami Skoff, MS, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Center for Health. Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

The first and most important rule of pertussis prevention is not complicated, says Skoff: “Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.” Vaccination is the best way to prevent whooping cough.

Simply attending regular pediatrician visits, where your baby will be vaccinated on a regular schedule, will ensure early immunity for your child. “You also help protect other children” through so-called “herd immunity,” Skoff adds: the more children vaccinated overall, the less whooping cough can spread among them.

Most parents are already aware of the importance of early vaccination against whooping cough and other childhood diseases. But because the vaccine’s protection doesn’t really take hold until the third shot, after the child turns 6 months old, it’s important to stop the spread of whooping cough among family members before then.

The CDC now recommends a whooping cough booster vaccine for everyone ages 11 to 64.Pregnant women are also encouraged to get vaccinated, preferably between 27 and 36 weeks of gestation. The booster vaccine, called Tdap, is given once and provides about 90% renewed immunity against whooping cough. It’s unclear how long the protection lasts, but it appears to be at least five years.

Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics as erythromycin, clarithromycin, doxycycline, azithromycinand trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. Anyone diagnosed with a cough during the first few weeks should take antibiotics to reduce the spread of the disease to other people. However, antibiotics may not reduce symptoms much.

Because whooping cough is so contagious, other family members must also take antibiotics to prevent whooping cough from developing and spreading. “Depending on the situation, close contacts at school or kindergarten You may also need to take antibiotics,” says Keyserling.

If your child has been exposed to someone with whooping cough at school or daycare, you may want to watch him or her closely and talk to his or her doctor to see if he or she should take antibiotics.

Other than vaccination and a Tdap booster shot, there is no effective way to prevent whooping cough. The bacteria is simply too contagious and the symptoms too similar to those of the common cold to realistically stop its spread.

Still, there are two things you can do to reduce the symptoms and spread of whooping cough, should this bacteria enter your family circle:

• Wash your hands. Hand hygiene is a universal recommendation. When possible, wash your hands or use alcohol-based sanitizers after touching nasal secretions.
• Cover your nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing. Encourage children to do the same.

However, as Keyserling points out, trying to prevent the spread of whooping cough without proper vaccination is probably a losing battle. “People are social beings and intimacy at home is natural,” he says. “No one washes their hands before hugging their child.”