Disease in the News

Disease in the News: Whooping Cough

Marvin Dumlao

HCS/330

July 21, 2010

Michelle Anthony

Disease in the News: Whooping Cough

A history of successful development of vaccines tends to inspire the belief that once-deadly viral and bacterial diseases will go the way of polio, which killed more than 3,000 people in 1952. The development of the polio vaccine in 1955 virtually eradicated the disease in the United States. The public strongly believes ongoing research will eventually render childhood diseases such as chickenpox or measles nonexistent or redefine them as merely mild irritations. People also direct this brash attitude toward another almost forgotten infectious disease, pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough. Whooping cough is an upper respiratory infection that spreads though infected droplets or contact with infected persons’ fluids. Although primarily known as a disease of infants and young children, the last two decades show rising infection rates among adolescents and adults (Walsh & Grose, 2010).

Doctors, nurses, and other professionals in the medical community are attempting to draw attention to the resurgence of the disease, but the people whom this campaign can most benefit do not seem ready to buy into the possible consequences of a pertussis comeback. Numerous journals and articles discuss the resurgence of pertussis. Too many people take too lightly the consequences of ignoring the possible return of a disease to near-epidemic proportions.

One such peer-reviewed article, The Resurgence of Pertussis, written by Salands C. Bowman, RN, CMSRN at the University of Western Kentucky, provides a detailed introduction of whooping cough and goes into significant depth about the epidemiology and pathogenicity of the disease. Ms. Bowman, who earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2008, also provides her updated...