Whooping Cough Cases Increase in Montgomery County Schools

The newest confirmed case of whooping cough in Montgomery County has sickened a student at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, bringing the total number of cases in the county to 15.

Montgomery County Health and Human Services Spokesperson Mary Anderson told MyMcMedia Friday that a student at the school is being treated for pertussis, also known as whooping cough.

A letter explaining the respiratory illness is expected to be sent home with Walter Johnson students Friday, Anderson said.

Originally 12 kids with connections to a summer camp in Pennsylvania had been confirmed with pertussis, an extremely contagious respiratory disease. Anderson said three of those original cases were lab-confirmed and nine others showed symptoms of the illness and were linked to someone at the camp who had pertussis.

Officials say the original 12 youths with the disease are students at Cabin John Middle School in Potomac and Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville, Julius West Middle School in Rockville and Cold Spring Elementary in Potomac. More than 200 Montgomery County children attended the camp.

Since then a student at Bethesda’s Thomas S. Wootton High School, who was also connected to the Pennsylvania camp, was reported to have pertussis. And, a Sherwood High School student in Sandy Spring who had nothing to do with the camp has been confirmed by a laboratory test to have whooping cough, Anderson says.

“We get cases of pertussis every year,” Anderson said. “In a different year this Sherwood case would have happened and we would have never heard about it. It is of interest now because we have had all these other cases that are linked.”

Anderson said typically the pertussis cases are not related.

Vaccinations Required or Students Stay Home

Parents of about 4,200 seventh-graders have not complied with Montgomery County Public Schools’ new vaccinations requirements, reports Montgomery Community Media, and the oversight could keep the students out of school.

Those students received a letter late last week letting them know that they did not have the necessary vaccinations needed to attend school, Anderson said.

All Maryland students entering seventh grade this school year must show proof of one Tdap (Tetnus-diptheria-acellular pertussis) vaccination and one meningococcal (MCV4) vaccination, health officials said.

Students who do not provide proof of the immunizations will be kept out of school starting Sept. 12, Anderson said.

Whooping Cough Symptoms

According to the Centers for Disease Control, pertussis spreads easily from person to person through coughing and sneezing. Patients are generally treated with antibiotics, which are used to control the symptoms and to prevent infected people from spreading the disease. Vaccination can often prevent the disease.

The disease is known for uncontrollable, violent coughing which often makes it hard to breathe, says the CDC. After fits of many coughs, someone with pertussis often needs to take deep breaths, which result in a “whooping” sound. Pertussis most commonly affects infants and young children and can be fatal, especially in babies less than 1 year of age.

Anyone diagnosed is reported to the Maryland Heath Department and then in turn reported to the county’s health agency. Symptoms include a runny nose and a cough that sounds similar to a bark, according to the CDC.

From January 1 to August 16, 2014, 17,325 cases of pertussis have been reported to CDC by 50 states and Washington, D.C.; this represents a 30 percent increase compared with the same time period in 2013, according to the CDC.

Anderson said in 2013 there were 196 confirmed cases of pertussis in Maryland.

»A boy with whooping cough gasps for breath. Credit: Centers for Disease Control.