Whooping Cough Rates: Dramatic Spike in Long Beach

California officials are reporting that the city of Long Beach is currently seeing a prevalence of whooping cough cases this year that is nearly nine times what the region saw in 2013.

According to reports from the Long Beach Health and Human Services Department, the Long Beach, California region has identified 43 cases of the highly contagious and dangerous disease. Last year, the same region only saw five cases of the illness between January and May.

This nearly nine-fold increase in whooping cough prevalence for the season has alarmed Californian health officials who say that Long Beach only saw a total of 15 cases of whooping cough for the whole year of 2013. If the disease maintains its current infection  rate in the region, Long Beach will have seen well over 100 cases of whooping cough by December.

In light of this, the Long Beach Health & Human Services Department dispatched an alert warning residents of the area of the rising whooping rates on Tuesday. Since that time, an additional one case was identified. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pertussis, commonly known as "whooping cough,"  is a highly contagious respiratory disease that causes fits of severe coughing and can result in oxygen deprivation and even vomiting.

The illness itself is the result of an infection of the Bordetella pertussis bacteria. Unlike most bacteria, this infection is airborne, being able to spread to a healthy host simply though breath alone.

This, of-course, makes pertussis very continuous, and children under the age of two are most vulnerable, as they are ineligible for the diphteria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine.

In an effort to keep rising infection rates down, Long Beach officials are requiring that young children receive five doses of the vaccination before entering kindergarten, and children who are entering the 7th grade will be required to present proof of an adolescent whooping cough booster shot. Adults and pregnant women are also being asked to keep up regular booster shots in order to prevent the spread of the disease to infants, who are most vulnerable.

The Long Beach public health warning was published on April 22.