A baby just five weeks old has died of whopping cough in San Diego. It’s the second infant death from the disease in California this year.
The toddler, otherwise completely healthy, died late last week according to NBC San Diego. Health officials have kept supplementary details under wraps for the time being.
Whopping cough is a highly contagious respiratory disease that travels from host to host through coughing. It’s particularly fatal to young children who are too young for a full vaccination. Pregnant women and anyone in regular content with infants should be vaccinated for the disease, also known as pertussis.
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises children should receive no less than five DTaP vaccinations before entering kindergarten, with a booster before seventh grade. Pregnant women should receive the adult version of the booster in their third trimester.
California recorded more than 9,000 cases of whopping cough in 2010, 10 of those being infant deaths. Whopping cough has a tendency to ebb and flow on a three-to-five year cycle; the last epidemic in the state occurred in 2014.
