Health Officials Urge Families to Get Vaccinated Against Whooping Cough

Oklahoma State Department of Health officials say parents need to be concerned about an illness that has already killed five infants on the West Coast.

Sunday, July 11th 2010, 6:00 pm

By: News 9


By Jacqueline Sit, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY – Officials from the Oklahoma State Department of Health say parents need to be concerned about an illness that can kill infants and has already hit the West Coast.

Whooping cough killed five infants in California this year. Health officials said they want parents to take proactive steps now, including getting vaccinated, before there's any problem in Oklahoma.

Parents should be concerned because whooping cough is usually not a serious illness for adults and teenagers but can be very serious for small children. More than half of all babies infected with whooping cough get it from their parents. It can spread easily because it may seem like a cold but that develops into a cough and that could be contagious.

"I have a daughter that was born three months premature and she's 3-years-old now. I want to make sure we don't catch anything or give anything to anybody else," said mother Katherine Gayman.

Gayman is concerned about whooping cough, so she's doing what she can to keep her girls from the illness.

"I've heard that people didn't give their kids shots end up getting sick and dying and everything so I don't want that to happen to our family," Gayman said.

What you need to know about whopping cough from the CDC.

Health officials are taking preventative measures to keep it from becoming a problem in Oklahoma.

"I haven't seen it spreading this way yet but certainly when things are on one coast or another, certainly with our mobile society, have the ability to have those spread. So now is the time to do something about it, now it's the time to be appropriately immunized so that's not an issue if that should come to Oklahoma," said Dr. Lynn Mitchell with the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

Approximately 90 percent of whooping cough deaths in the U.S. occur in babies less than 6-months-old.

Learn more about immunizations including where you can get the vaccinated from the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

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