The Collective Prevention Services (CPS), is advising parents and guardians to check the vaccination status of their children where pertussis (whooping cough) is concerned, and if the child is not vaccinated against the aforementioned, to do so in order to prevent whooping cough. The infection has become a re-emerging disease, which today is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in children.
Parents are advised to check the vaccination status of their child to see if they are up to date with respect to the pertussis vaccine.
The main victims of this acute respiratory infection are infants younger than six months, usually acquired from their parents or teenage siblings.
In infants, pertussis can be a serious disease that can lead to severe complications or even death, unlike what happens in adults or older children.
Information from the Caribbean Epidemiology Center (CAREC) of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization shows that up until 30 April, 2012, 597 cases of pertussis were confirmed by laboratory testing. In the same period of 2011, there were 315 cases, and this is 90 percent more, according to the data that comes from the National Reference Laboratory for Bordetella pertussis of Argentina.
The cases reported in that period were in turn 1028 in 2011 and 2399 in 2012, which means an increase of 133 percent, perhaps explained by the deepening of the epidemiological surveillance that would result in greater reporting of suspect cases.
The Ministry of Health of Argentina reported that in 2011 the cases reported were more than expected, a situation similar to that recorded in other countries of the region, such as Chile, Uruguay, Cuba and the USA, which also had outbreaks of the disease.
In 2012, the situation has not changed, warned this week the head of the National Program for Control of Vaccine-preventable Diseases, Carla Vizzotti, who pointed out that the figures "indicate a level of suspect cases confirms that we are in an outbreak, as happened in 2011."