This Article published March 22nd by MyHealthNewsDaily stated that a new strain of whooping cough has increased its prevalence now. Whooping Cough known as “Pertussis” is a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable coughing. The coughing can make it hard to breathe.
A new study conducted said that cases of whooping couch caused by this new strain have increased from 31% to 84% in the past ten years. Researches believe they must make changes in the vaccine, or increase the number of boosters.
Australia has had a Whooping Cough epidemic since 2008; most extremely affecting children age’s five to nine. Doctors believe this new strand is affecting this age group because in 1997 they switched over to a purified vaccine with fewer antigens, which contain proteins to develop immunity. One doctor named Lan said "If the ACV is less effective against these new strains, we need to ask what other strategies can be used to combat the epidemic, which is ongoing,"
This article relates to the unit we did for the flu. That is because Whooping Cough has developed into a new strain more immune to vaccines, and that’s what also happened with the flu. This caused the development of a new vaccine. Also they are both respiratory diseases. I thought that this article was very interesting because it shows the ability for a virus to develop immunity to a vaccine that is supposed to be preventing it from us. Also it’s an important disease that we need eradicated because infants are the ones most at risk for dieing from it.
This article really grabbed my attention because it was just posted a few days ago regarding a new strain of whooping cough. I knew whooping cough was on the rise and its dangers as well from commerials on most tv stations. However I was unaware that the rise was due to a new strain of whooping cough. Ian mentioned that the Australian outbreak was affecting kids ages 5 to 9 and this reminded me of polio. The polio outbreak was most dangerous to children of this age because at this point they have lost their mother's immunity from birth and have yet to build up their own immunity. I think it is interesting that they are considering giving more boosters to children who have already recieved the vaccine. I don't understand how that will prevent whooping cough because it is a new strain, unless they have updated the booster. Boosters are very common now, for example boosters are sometimes given now for chicken pox.
ReplyDeleteThis article is very interesting, because it can be related to the recent unit we studied about influenza. While studying the flu, we learned about the concerns of new strains of the virus being created that are drug-resistant. This new outbreak of whooping cough is a great example of a new strain developing that is resistant to the current vaccine. Like the article says, the vaccine was switched in 1997 which likely caused the new strain to develop. This relates to the strain of the flu that appeared a few years ago, H1N1. H1N1 was resistant to the current drugs we have against the flu, and it was causing a lot concern because people didn't know how to stop it and they did not want it to cause an epidemic.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this article was a “must read” after reading the first sentence. It really caught my eye with the picture and the fact that Australia has had a epidemic since 2008! I thought that it was really interesting and really connected to our class in many different ways. I knew that whopping cough was a very bad disease but I did not know that it could get this bad. I agree with Ian when he said it connected with the flu, because when we studied the flu we learned that it could make different strans in it. I never knew that this could also happen with whopping cough. This article was a very good read and I am glad I got to learn more about this disease.
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