Whooping Cough Cases Up in NYC

8/1/12 - By Alina Adams

Whooping cough, or pertussis, is on the rise all over the U.S., even in New York City. (Guess that explains why NY1 has seemingly played that whooping cough PSA on a loop for the last month.) Incidents in NYC have gone up 300 percent and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that this may be the worst season for it in half a century.

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While the disease is most common among adults and adolescents, it's potentially fatal when contracted by very young children. Unfortunately, it's easy for grown-ups to unwittingly pass on pertussis since symptoms start out like a typical cold, eventually leading to severe and often uncontrollable coughing complete with the signature whoop-sounding gasp for air.

As a result, the CDC is urging everyone who hasn't had a whooping cough vaccination since the age of 18 to get a booster shot—especially adults who come into regular contact with children and babies. New York Senator Charles Schumer has also requested that the federal government work with local officials to make the vaccine available for free throughout the country.

Personally, I don't remember what shots I got prior to the age of 18. As immunization requirements vary by state, country and especially time periods, I can't assume anything. And I don't think I've gotten any vaccinations as an adult save for a flu shot. The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases recommends one booster of Whooping Cough/Tetanus/Diphtheria (Tdap) for every adult between the ages of 19 and 64. This year seems like a very good time to get myself one.

About the Author

Alina Adams

Alina Adams - NYC Writer

Alina was born in the former Soviet Union, spent her teen years in San Francisco, and came to New York City to work for ABC Daytime and ABC Sports. She spent her pre-marriage/pre-kid years as a figure-skating researcher and producer for the U.S. and World Championships, the 1998 Olympics in Nagano and various professional shows.

After learning that international travel and resentful toddlers don’t mix, she switched to PGP Productions and its soap operas As the World Turns and Guiding Light, where she wrote New York Times best-selling tie-in books and developed interactive properties like AnotherWorldToday.com.

The birth of her third child (and the process of enrolling her two older kids into NYC schools—a full-time job in itself!) convinced Alina that she was not, in fact, Superwoman, and prompted her to leave TV and turn to writing books, including romance novels (Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga, When a Man Loves a Woman), figure-skating mysteries (Murder on Ice, On Thin Ice) and nonfiction (Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments).

In addition to contributing to Mommy Poppins, Alina blogs for Jewish parenting site Kveller.com and is in the process of turning her previously published backlist into enhanced e-books with multimedia features like audio, video and more. Follow her exhaustive and exhausting efforts to become a Mommy Media Mogul (is that a thing? If it isn’t, it really should be) at AlinaAdams.com and on Google+