Health District urges immunizations against Pertussis

The Delaware Gen­eral Health Dis­trict (DGHD) is work­ing to pro­tect as many local infants as pos­si­ble from Per­tus­sis, which has grown into an epi­demic across the United States this year.

Also called Whoop­ing Cough, Per­tus­sis is a vaccine-preventable bac­te­r­ial infec­tion. It is known for the dis­tinc­tive “whoop” sound that infected chil­dren emit dur­ing cough­ing spells.

“New­borns are at high risk for seri­ous ill­ness,” said Joyce Rich­mond R.N., Delaware Gen­eral Health Dis­trict Direc­tor of Nurs­ing. “We need to get moms, dads and every­one in close con­tact with young chil­dren immu­nized against Per­tus­sis. When you put a cocoon of immu­niza­tion around babies, you can pro­tect them from this disease.”

There have been 40 cases of Per­tus­sis con­firmed in the Delaware Gen­eral Health Dis­trict so far this year, which is in line with the local aver­ages for the past three and five years. More than half of this year’s cases were chil­dren aged 5 to 14. Two of the rea­sons there are so many cases here and nation­wide is that Per­tus­sis immu­niza­tions are not 100 per­cent effec­tive in all recip­i­ents, and the effec­tive­ness decreases over time. How­ever, Rich­mond said get­ting the immu­niza­tion remains the best strat­egy to pre­vent the disease.

Rich­mond announced two new devel­op­ments in the fight against Pertussis:

• A new rec­om­men­da­tion that preg­nant women should receive Per­tus­sis immu­niza­tions after 20 weeks of preg­nancy, if they had not been immu­nized ear­lier. Rich­mond said moth­ers immu­nized against Per­tus­sis trans­fer mater­nal anti­bod­ies to their babies in the womb, pos­si­bly giv­ing the new­born bet­ter pro­tec­tion against the dis­ease. The new rec­om­men­da­tion came from the nation­wide Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Immu­niza­tion Prac­tices and has been endorsed by the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Obste­tri­cians and Gyne­col­o­gists. Women should dis­cuss this with their doctor.

• New out­reach by the local Health Dis­trict encour­ages every­one to get a Per­tus­sis immu­niza­tion. The Health Dis­trict is cir­cu­lat­ing pam­phlets at child care cen­ters, med­ical offices and other loca­tions encour­ag­ing every­one age 10 and older — espe­cially those in close con­tact with young chil­dren — to get the Tdap vac­cine against Per­tus­sis, Tetanus and Diphtheria.

The Delaware Gen­eral Health Dis­trict pro­vides Tdap vac­cine on a slid­ing fee scale which may reduce the cost to $0. Adult immu­niza­tions are pro­vided every week­day morn­ing from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at the Health Dis­trict Clinic at 3 West Win­ter Street in down­town Delaware. Adult immu­niza­tions also are pro­vided at Adult Walk-In Clin­ics at that loca­tion every Tues­day from 2 to 4 p.m. and the last Tues­day of each month from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Tdap also is avail­able at all eight DGHD In your neigh­bor­hood sites, includ­ing the Sun­bury United Methodist Church on the sec­ond Tues­day of each month from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. and the Genoa Town­ship Com­mu­nity Hall on the third Wednes­day of each month from 2 to 4 p.m.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion phone the Health Dis­trict Clinic at 740–203-2040.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.