Cedar County health officials report a case of whooping cough

By Steve Moyer

Nevada Daily Mail

"Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands," Jeanne Baldwin, Vernon County Health Department, said, commenting on one case of pertussis, or whooping cough reported recently in Cedar County. "That's my mantra."

While Cedar County has one case, Bates, Barton and Vernon counties haven't had any cases since Aug. 1 and Vernon County has had no reports of it for a year.

Pertussis got the name 'whooping cough' because of the paroxysms of coughing it causes. It lasts two or more weeks and is spread from person to person by coughing or sneezing.

"Cough into your elbow or even cough into your collar but cover up when you cough," Baldwin said. "That will help prevent the spread."

Baldwin said their is good news about the disease.

"The good news is the treatment is cheap. It's easy to treat and it can be tested for easily," Baldwin said.

Parents of small children need to take the immunization schedule seriously, Baldwin said.

"We need to stress to parents that it's important that when we start giving those immunizations at two months that they get their child vaccinated," Baldwin said. "This is not the old vaccine that caused so many problems, this doesn't have them at all."

Baldwin said the 10-year booster shot now includes an update for pertussis.

"We used to give the TD vaccine but now its the DTaP vaccine," Baldwin said.

Another thing about the vaccine that should ease parents' minds is the composition of the vaccine itself.

"There is no mercury in it, not at all," Baldwin said.

Baldwin said children are the most at risk from whooping cough, which is why it is so important to protect them with vaccines and preventative steps.

"It's the young who get the most critically ill," Baldwin said. "Anyone can get it and pass it on. Our resistance is waning, we pick it up and pass it on to the little ones and they have the worst of it."