Outbreak

Cover that cough

Outbreak

Spring always brings an uptick in allergies, colds and flu, but this year students are coming down with a rather uncommon illness. Whooping cough is hitting Carmel hard.

With half a dozen known cases, students, faculty, and parents are becoming more and more concerned about the spread of the bacteria-based disease.

School nurse Kathryn Hunter says that pertussis may be hard for doctors to diagnose because most doctors aren’t looking for it.

“Older kids and adults don’t normally have the regular whooping sound in their cough, so they can go for a long time without being diagnosed” Hunter said.

Symptoms mimic those of a regular cold and cough in teenagers, so some don’t even know that they have it. Because it is highly-contagious, though, students who come to school sick can pass it along.

Whooping cough is preventable with a simple immunization called Tdap. All of the Carmel students who have contracted pertussis so far this year had already received Tdap vaccines. Unfortunately, the efficacy of the immunization starts to go down as time goes on.

 

“Most students’ vaccines are more than two years old, so their immunity is going down,” Hunter said.

Once there is an official pertussis diagnosis, treatment comes in the form of a course of antibiotics. Those students are also required to stay home for at least five days to minimize the risk of passing it on to others.

Junior Daniel Dewald is one of the six Carmel students to contract pertussis.

“I was diagnosed at the end of February, treated through March, but I still have the cough in April,” Dewald said. “The doctor said since pertussis had such an impact on my lungs, I could have the cough for another year.”

Carmel is also taking measures to stop the spread of the disease with some common sense reminders. Each classroom has at least one large bottle of hand sanitizer and teachers are encouraging students not to share beverages and to practice good hygiene.

“Avoid putting pens in your mouth, cough into your elbow,” Hunter said. “And make sure you always wash your hands.”