Whooping Cough, TB and On the Rise in Montgomery County

County health director: 'We are seeing striking rises.'

TB and Whooping Cough On Rise in Montgomery County

"We are seeing striking rises...," says county health director.

Whooping Cough has tripled this year in Montgomery County, while tuberculosis is continuing a steady climb that is twice as high as rates seen across the state and the rest of the country. While Montgomery's surge in whooping cough paralells a national trend, the prevalence of tuberculosis stands out against declining state and national figures, the county health officer told the County Council on Tuesday. Whooping cough—known medically as pertussis—is caused by a highly contagious bacterium and can be deadly for infants. Alarms of a nationwide epidemic sounded this summer when the Centers for Disease Control announced pertussis rates that were on pace to be the worst since 40,000 cases were reported in 1959, ABC News reported. The …

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Jeff Hawkins

8:47 am on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

If the numbers show that a certain segment of our society is NOT being vaccinated and that the result is a rise in those diseases, then yes I would agree with your comment. The obvious answer would to see that those individuals receive proper vaccination (how I don't know).   more ›