Officials Warn of Whooping Cough: Outbreak of Infection Reported at Montco Elementary School.

By Patrick Lester, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Dec. 15–An outbreak of whooping cough at a Montgomery County elementary school has prompted a public health warning from the county’s health department.

Health officials say there have been seven confirmed cases of the highly contagious and potentially fatal bacterial respiratory infection at Bridle Path Elementary School, 200 Bridle Path Road, Montgomery Township.

All of the students, who are in second, fourth and fifth grades, will be treated with antibiotics at home for five days before they will be allowed to return to the school in the North Penn School District, according to the health department. Anyone those children have contact with at home will receive preventative medication.

The county is urging parents to make sure their children are immunized and asks that people with symptoms, which include a runny nose, sneezing, low-grade fever and a mild cough, to visit a doctor immediately. Advanced symptoms include severe, rapid coughing.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is disease that affects the respiratory tract and is spread by coughing and sneezing and can occur at any age, according to the health department. It is caused by a bacterium found in the mouth, nose and throat.

It can cause pneumonia, ear infection, loss of appetite, dehydration, seizures, brain disorders, loss of breath and death. Eighty percent of deaths occur in children under the age of 1.

The first two cases at the 615-student school, which serves Hatfield and Montgomery townships, were discovered around Thanskgiving, according to Harriet Morton, a health department spokeswoman. At that point, the county did not consider it an outbreak. Five additional cases were confirmed Thursday, prompting the warning.

The school district has sent letters to parents from the school telling them about the outbreak, the number of students affected and the disease, according to Katie Lloyd, a school district spokeswoman.

“We want to make sure that parents make sure their children are up to date [with vaccinations],” Morton said. “We do have other cases [in the county].”

Morton said the county has had five other confirmed cases of the disease this year. That’s still far below last year’s total of 38. The county says that symptoms usually appear five to 10 days after exposure and can take as long as three weeks to develop.

Nationally, 5,000 to 7,000 cases are reported annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says the number of cases has increased steadily since the 1980s.

The CDC says 13 children died from the disease in 2003 and that most deaths occur among unvaccinated children or children too young to be vaccinated.

Epidemics occur every three to five years with the most recent one occurring in 1996, the CDC says.

The health department is asking doctors and other health care providers to help them in controlling the outbreak by promptly reporting suspect cases.

Residents who want more information on the disease can contact the health department at 610-278-5117.

215-529-2612

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