Whooping Cough Outbreaks

• ATLANTA -- Whooping cough was once a terrible menace to U.S. children, with hundreds of thousands of cases reported annually. Then a vaccine drove cases down, and the illness became thought of as rare and even antiquated.
(Huffington Post)
• Why are so many outbreaks happening in 2012? The reasons for the current outbreaks of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, and what should be done to contain them are not especially clear.
(NBCNews.com)
• This year, Bexar County and a majority of U.S. states have seen a rise in pertussis — commonly known as whooping cough. Severe outbreaks have been reported in Bell County and in Washington State. While adults get sick from pertussis, symptoms are often mild.
(MySanAntonio)
• From west to east the highest cases of whooping cough are in: Washington, Iowa, Montana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont. Outbreaks at middle schools and high schools along with institutional settings are common.
(Examiner)
• one of the states with the biggest outbreaks. Washington and Wisconsin have reported more than 3,000 cases each, and high numbers have been seen in a number of other states, including New York, Minnesota and Arizona.
(Augusta Chronicle)
• A great deal of data suggests that the idea that whooping cough outbreaks are cyclical is an old wives tale. The overwhelming majority of pertussis cases in 2010 and in 2012 are in the 21 states that allow a personal belief exemption from immunizations.
(Examiner)
• Officials say that the effectiveness of the vaccine given to control whooping cough is to be doubted. Being a highly contagious bacterial disease, it hits mostly to infants and kids. Institutional outbreaks of pertussis are common.
(andhranews.net)
• one of the states with the biggest outbreaks. Washington and Wisconsin have reported more than 3,000 cases each, and high numbers have been seen in a number of other states, including New York, Minnesota and Arizona.
(Cape Breton)
• whooping cough was virtually eliminated by 1976, when just more than 1,000 cases were reported in the United States. Yet even though the vast majority of children were getting vaccinated, the number of outbreaks started to rise in the 1980s.
(Las Vegas Review Journal)