Pertussis Prophylaxis Blog

Whooping Cough Immunity Lasts 30 Years or More

Posted 1 day 12 hours ago by Drugs.com

FRIDAY, Oct. 30 – Exposure to whooping cough will provide immunity for an average of three decades, new research suggests.

Doctors had previously thought that immunity lasted for much less time. But the new study, by researchers based at the University of Michigan and the University of New Mexico, rebuts that assumption.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, has become more common in the United States and elsewhere since the 1980s. Some health experts have thought that immunity is wearing off for people who'd been vaccinated or had been infected by the disease. Read more...

Related support groups: Pertussis Prophylaxis

Refusing Shots Puts Kids at Higher Risk for Whooping Cough

Posted 3+ months ago by Drugs.com

TUESDAY, May 26 – Compared to children who are immunized against whooping cough, those who aren't vaccinated are 23 times more likely to get the infection – a finding that shows the danger faced by children whose parents refuse to have their children vaccinated.

That's the conclusion of researchers who reviewed the health records of Kaiser Permanente Colorado members aged 2 months to 18 years between 1996 and 2007, and identified 156 cases of whooping cough (pertussis).

"This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine preventable diseases," lead author Jason Glanz, a senior scientist at Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Health Research, said in a Kaiser news release. Read more...

Related support groups: Pertussis Prophylaxis

Independent Audit of Global Child Immunizations Urged

Posted 3+ months ago by Drugs.com

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 17 – About 7 million fewer children are immunized against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (pertussis) than individual nations and World Health Organization/UNICEF estimates report, a new study shows.

Since countries receive international funding for vaccinations based on these estimates, the University of Washington in Seattle researchers calculated that 51 countries may have been overpaid $140 million, or almost twice as much as they should have received, for vaccinations that were never given.

The authors, writing in this week's issue of The Lancet, call for independent monitoring that is open to public scrutiny to avoid abuse of these important health-care initiatives. Read more...

Related support groups: Diphtheria Prophylaxis, Pertussis Prophylaxis, Tetanus Prophylaxis

Earlier Vaccination Could Cut Whooping Cough Deaths

Posted 3+ months ago by Drugs.com

MONDAY, Nov. 3 – Giving infants a routine pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine two weeks earlier than normal could prevent at least 1,236 cases of pertussis, 898 hospitalizations and seven deaths each year in the United States, a new study finds.

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University reported their findings in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics. Read more...

Related support groups: Pertussis Prophylaxis