Euro Surveill. Pertussis outbreak in northwest Ireland, January ? June 2010

[Giuseppe]

[Source: Eurosurveillance.org, full text: <cite cite="http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19654">Eurosurveillance - View Article</cite>. Abstract, edited.]

Eurosurveillance, Volume 15, Issue 35, 02 September 2010

Rapid communications

Pertussis outbreak in northwest Ireland, January ? June 2010

A S Barret 1,2, A Ryan 3, A Breslin 3, L Cullen 3, A Murray 3, J Grogan 4, S Bourke 5, S Cotter 1
1. Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), Dublin, Ireland
2. European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Stockholm, Sweden
3. Department of Public Health, Health Services Executive North West, Sligo, Ireland
4. Our Lady?s Sick Children?s Hospital (OLSCH), Crumlin, Dublin, Ireland
5. Aghadark General Practice, Ballinamore, Ireland

Citation style for this article: Barret AS, Ryan A, Breslin A, Cullen L, Murray A, Grogan J, Bourke S, Cotter S. Pertussis outbreak in northwest Ireland, January ? June 2010. Euro Surveill. 2010;15(35)ii=19654. Available online: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19654

Date of submission: 30 August 2010


We report a community pertussis outbreak that occurred in a small town located in the northwest of Ireland. Epidemiological investigations suggest that waning immunity and the absence of a booster dose during the second year of life could have contributed to the outbreak. The report also highlights the need to reinforce the surveillance of pertussis in Ireland and especially to improve the clinical and laboratory diagnosis of cases.

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[Shiloh]

Re: Euro Surveill. Pertussis outbreak in northwest Ireland, January ? June 2010

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2010/0914/1224278817344.html

The Irish Times - Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Whooping cough makes a comeback
MUIRIS HOUSTON

Snip:

...In the US, pertussis had been all but eliminated in the mid-1970s following the introduction of the three-in-one vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DTP) some decades earlier. Whooping cough had gone from being a feared child killer in the 1920s and 1930s to a rare clinical phenomenon. But the state of California has declared a pertussis epidemic, with more than 2,700 cases so far this year, a seven-fold increase from a year earlier. Other states have had less dramatic increases in the infectious disease.

Last week?s news of an outbreak of whooping cough in the Republic is a wake-up call for the authorities here. A paper published in the scientific journal Eurosurveillance gives details of a serious outbreak of whooping cough in Co Leitrim earlier this year. A preliminary investigation identified some 67 possible cases in the Ballinamore area between January and June. On average, about 80 cases of whooping cough are notified annually in the entire State, underlying the unprecedented scale of the outbreak in the northwest. The highest attack rates in the outbreak were in children under the age of 12 months and those aged three and under. But cases among adolescents and young adults were also noted, suggesting that waning immunity against the infectious disease could be a factor.

It is something the authors of the report commented on: ?In the 1990s and 2000s, findings from various pertussis surveillance systems demonstrated a change in the age profile of pertussis cases in countries with high vaccine coverage rates in young children. A shift in the age group has been observed, with increasing pertussis incidence among adolescents and adults...?