Study: Whooping cough vaccination fades in 3 years

[Guest guest]

Probably will be used to have mandated pertussis vaccine (with D & T)

every 3 years

(

http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?fmId=53822480)

Study: Whooping cough vaccination

fades in 3 years

ATLANTA, Mon Sep 19, 05:02 PM

An empty bottle of Tetanus, Diphthera and Pertussis, (whooping cough)

vaccine is seen at Inderkum High School in

Sacramento....More

The whooping cough vaccine given to babies and toddlers loses much

of its effectiveness after just three years - a lot faster than doctors

believed - and that could help explain a recent series of outbreaks in

the U.S. among children who were fully vaccinated, a study

suggests.

The study is small and preliminary, and its authors said the results need

to be confirmed through more research. Nevertheless, the findings are

likely to stir debate over whether children should get a booster shot

earlier than now recommended.

" I was disturbed to find maybe we had a little more confidence in

the vaccine than it might deserve, " said the lead researcher, Dr.

Witt, chief of infectious disease at the Kaiser Permanente Medical

Center in San , Calif. Witt presented his findings Monday at a

medical conference in Chicago.

The study was done in California, where whooping cough vaccinations are a

hot-button issue. The state had a huge spike in whooping cough cases last

year, during which more than 9,100 people fell ill and 10 babies died

after exposure from adults or older children. California schools have

turned away thousands of middle and high school students this fall who

haven't gotten their booster shot.

Government health officials recommend that children get vaccinated

against whooping cough in five doses, with the first shot at age 2 months

and the final one between 4 and 6 years. Then youngsters are supposed to

get a booster shot around 11 or 12. That means a gap of five to eight

years.

Witt's study looked at roughly 15,000 children in Marin County, Calif.,

including 132 who got whooping cough last year. He found that youngsters

who had gone three years or more since the last of their series of shots

were as much as 20 times more likely to become infected than children who

had been more recently vaccinated. The largest number of cases was in

children 8 to 12 years old.

Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious bacterial disease

that in rare cases can be fatal. It leads to severe coughing that causes

children to make a distinctive whooping sound as they gasp for

breath.

Marin County has a reputation for anti-vaccine sentiment, and Witt said

that when he started the study he expected to see the illness

concentrated in unvaccinated people. But more than 80 percent of the

children who developed whooping cough in Witt's study were fully

vaccinated.

California health officials told doctors last year that they could give

the booster to kids as young as 7 in an effort to stifle the outbreaks.

Federal health officials said that they are still studying the issue and

that it is too soon to make that a standard practice.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which makes

recommendations on childhood shots, officials acknowledged that the

vaccine's protection declines, but they said the agency's own studies

show the drop-off is not as pronounced as Witt's research found.

The CDC has estimated that the risk of the disease can increase fourfold

several years after vaccination, not 10 to 20 times. One reason may be

differences in how a case is defined: Witt counted positive test results,

while the CDC also requires more than a week of symptoms.

CDC officials stressed that the vaccination is still much better than

nothing - it reduces how sick a child becomes. Also, the nation no longer

sees thousands of whooping cough deaths each year, as it did before there

was a vaccine.

The shots " are still our best protection against pertussis, and they

still protect well against fatal disease, " said Dr. Tom , who

leads the CDC's epidemiology team focused on vaccine-preventable

diseases.

A vaccine using killed bacteria was used for decades, but the nation

switched over to a new type in the late 1990s that was seen as less

likely to cause the arm soreness, fever and more severe side effects

associated with the older version. The vaccine is typically given in a

combination shot that also protects against tetanus and

diphtheria.

Periodic outbreaks still occur in places with high vaccination

rates.

The short-term effectiveness of the vaccine has been shown to be 90

percent or higher in the first couple of years, and nearly every state

requires children to get the full series of shots before enrolling in

school. The long-term effectiveness is not well understood, but

researchers thought it was more than three years.

A preliminary study conducted by the CDC last year found the five-dose

vaccination for children was about 70 percent effective five years after

the last shot. Witt's research suggests the effectiveness may drop much

lower than that, perhaps below 50 percent after just three

years.

Witt also found that shots work great in the short term. Rates of

whooping cough dropped dramatically after kids were age 11 and 12, when

many get the booster shot.

The long-term effectiveness of that booster also is not known and has

received relatively little study. Health officials are also discussing

whether additional boosters may one day be recommended for teenagers or

adults.

" It's a little too soon to say much " about the longer-term

effectiveness of that booster, said Lara Misegades, a CDC

epidemiologist.

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

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