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MyHealthNewsDaily.com
Children's risk of contracting whooping cough increases over the years following their final scheduled vaccination, a new study says.
While the vaccine protects 98 out of 100 children in the first year after the final shot in the five-injection series, protection drops to 71 out of 100 children five years later, according to the study, which included cases from the 2010 California outbreak of whooping cough, also called pertussis. In other words, the vaccine's effectiveness declines by about 30 percent within five years of the final dose, the researchers said.
The United States is on track for more cases of whooping cough this year than in any other year since 1959.
Children receive the last dose of the vaccine, known as DTaP (which also protects against diphtheria and tetanus), between ages 4 and 6. They get a booster shot in adolescence.
The new study joins several others in the last few years in suggesting that children ages 7 to 10 have less immune protection against whooping cough. But this the first study to estimate how much the vaccine's effectiveness declines after the final dose, the researchers said.
Findings from this study and others may prompt health officials to change the age at which children receive one of the DTaP shots or to add another booster shot.
However, health officials should make sure that the changes won't "be creating new pockets of disease in other age groups," said study researcher Lara Misegades, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For instance, moving the booster shot up from the teen years to age 10 could mean fewer kids get the shot, since they do not routinely visit the doctor at that age, Misegades said.
Whooping cough outbreak
In 2010, more than 9,000 cases of whooping cough occurred in California, including 10 deaths — the state's worst outbreak in 60 years.
Misegades and colleagues analyzed information from 682 children ages 4 to 10 who had whooping cough during that outbreak and, as a control group, about 2,000 children who visited the doctor for other reasons during the same time period. Close to 70 percent of children in both groups had received their fifth dose of DTaP at age 4.
The researchers used the unvaccinated children as a reference group to help determine the vaccine's effectiveness.
About 8 percent of children who had whooping cough, and 1 percent of those who did not get whooping cough, never got vaccinated against the disease, researchers noted.
New vaccine schedule?
An older version of the whooping cough vaccine, known as the whole-cell pertussis vaccine, was thought to protect people against the disease for most of their lives. But there were concerns that this vaccine caused unwanted side effects, such as fever and swelling at the injection site. So a new, more purified version of the vaccine, called the acelluar vaccine, was introduced in 1997.
When health officials made the switch, they were, "to some extent, trading efficacy for safety," said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "I just don't think that people had a sense that the trade would be this big," Offit said, referring to new vaccine's waning protection.
The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes vaccine schedule recommendations, has not discussed changes to the whooping cough vaccine schedule for children. And it will likely be some time before the committee votes on the issue, said ACIP member Dr. Mark Sawyer, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego.
Before the committee could recommend a booster shot for children younger than 11, there would need to be studies showing it is safe to give the vaccine at that age, Sawyer said.
Experts agreed that the United States is unlikely to return to the whole-cell pertussis vaccine, despite the shot's long-lasting immunity. So, doctors may have to wait for the creation of a new, longer-lasting vaccine that lacks the side effects of the old one, Sawyer said.
Pass it on: The effectiveness of the whooping cough vaccine in children declines by about 30 percent five years after the final shot.
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We are quite fortunate that so many lives have been saved over the decades from these diseases. Considering how many children died in the past. So many parents take for granted the blessings of modern medicine. When visiting cemeteries, especially older ones while doing genealogy work, it is heartbreaking to see all the little headstones of the babies who died from diseases we can so easily treat with vaccines now days.It was not uncommon for mothers to have seven or eight children but only one or two live to adulthood because the rest died in infancy.
With parents now days who reject vaccines because they fear side effects, more cases of old diseases rearing their ugly heads and spreading through daycare centers, elementary schools can be frightening. It is tragic any babies die unnecessarily because of such fears from uninformed parents. Although such side effects can be extremely rare.Given the risks from the disease, one must choose wisely.
Nice headline - "....risk of whopping cough.."
That's one whopping cough you got there, youngster.
I had whooping cough at age 6 months (1956). My parents had to hold me upside down to help me breathe, they say. I was lucky enough to survive, but also had occasional bronchitis through my youth.
Yeah, great typo. Bordatella pertussis can kill infants and young children. Please vaccinate!
I heard a doctor once speculate on the cause and effect. He suggested that those with tendency to bronchitis were more likely to have the severe respiratory infection, as opposed to the servere respiratory infection causing later bronchitis.
Your headline indicates that kids who would otherwise no get pertussis have a greater risk of getting pertussis if they get the final shot. I understand that you are forced to hype these articles but shame on you. The headline will have some readers avoiding the final shot in order to lessen the risk that increases after the final shot. Do you understand what I'm saying?
for all of these bacterias including tb - lets look at ear wax -that protects the ear by killing bacteria and fungus
It protects the skin of the human ear canal, assists in cleaning and lubrication, and also provides some protection from bacteria, fungi, insects and water.
more recent studies have found that cerumen has a bactericidal effect on some strains of bacteria. Cerumen has been found to reduce the viability of a wide range of bacteria, including Haemophilus influenzae, Staphylococcus aureus, and many variants of Escherichia coli, sometimes by as much as 99%.[16][17] The growth of two fungi commonly present in otomycosis was also significantly inhibited by human cerumen.[18] These antimicrobial properties are due principally to the presence of saturated fatty acids, lysozyme and, especially, to the slight acidity of cerumen (pHtypically around 6.1 in normal individuals[19]).
courtesy of wikipedia - love them and will donate
This has got to be the most piss-poor headline I've ever read. You imply that kids are at an increased risk following their final shot, as if the shot was somehow making kids more vulnerable instead of protecting them. What the article then goes on to say is something that is well known and well established in the scientific community: immunity in kids is waning over time. It's headlines like this that lead people to stop vaccinating their children which puts everyone at risk.