Two infants died of a vaccine-appointable disease in Louisiana network after the surgeon-general said that he would no longer promote mass vaccination campaigns.
The children died of whooping cough, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes minutes -long cough, which makes patients trouble breathing.
It can be prevented with a vaccine called TDAP, given in five doses between the age of two months and four to six years, but the absorption of this vaccine falls in Louisiana and nationally.
In the school year from 2023 to 2024, 92.3 percent of kindergarten received the vaccine, which protects against Tetanus, Difterie and Pertussis (whooping cough). This percentage is below 95 percent who experts say that it is necessary to prevent the disease from spreading.
At least five people died of whooping cough in the US in the past six months, including a child younger than five in the state of Washington – the first since 2011.
And infections are rising nationwide, with 6,600 so far reported this year – or four times the number that was recorded in 2024 at the same time.
Last year there were 35,000 cases of whooping cough in the US, the most since 2014, while at least a dozen people died of infection.
The US is now fighting against spiral-shaped outbreaks of vaccin-preventionable diseases in the midst of an increase in the skepticism of vaccine after the COVID pandemie.
Civil servants say that the best way to prevent a whooping cough infection is to be vaccinated (stock)
In West -Texas there is a large outbreak of measles – the most contagious disease in the world – that can also be prevented with a vaccine.
More than 481 cases and 56 hospital admissions have been reported so far, the most rural since 2019, while two people have died, including a six -year -old girl.
Whooping cough causes an infection that starts like a runny nose, sneezing and mild cough or fever.
But by the second week of the infection, patients suffer from uncontrollable coughs that take minutes, make them trouble breathing and make their faces red or blue.
Infants are particularly vulnerable to the disease, who kills about two percent of babies under a year old who are infected.
Doctors can treat the disease with the help of antibiotics, but patients who catch it also run the risk of lifelong complications, including brain damage that leads to lagging development, vision problems and chronic lung problems.
The best way to prevent the disease is to get the TDAP vaccine.
It is offered to all children in a five-dose course at the age of two months, four months, six months, 15 to 18 months and four to six years old, with a booster between the ages of 10 and 11 years.
The vaccine is 98 percent effective in the prevention of whooping cough.
Few further details were released about the Louisiana patients, except that the patients were the first deaths in the state since 2018.
Thanksgiving cuttings from the disease were also reported this year to a child in South Dakota and to an adult in Idaho. Last year there were about a dozen fatalities.
They came after the surgeon General of the State said last month that he would not promote a massive vaccination campaigns and said vaccination was an individual decision.
In a memo, Dr. Ralph l Abraham that the State would encourage every patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider ', but would no longer “promote mass -vaccination.”
Kink cough caused 200,000 infections in the US every year and around 9,000 deaths in children.
After the vaccine had been rolled out in the 1940s, the cases fell considerably – but have slowly crawled in the middle of reducing vaccination rates.
