Apache County Supervisor Doyel Shamley is warning residents in the Concho area of cases of Whooping Cough (Pertussis). According to the Apache County Health Department (ACHD), at this time, there is one lab confirmed case, and 5 physician-diagnosed cases of Pertussis.
“A few more family members of the last diagnosed cases are going on Wednesday for evaluation and treatment, so there may be more cases,” said Shamley. “The family is unwilling to provide the names to of possible exposures to us for follow-up prophylaxis and/or monitoring.”
[View fact sheet about Pertussis]
Shamley suggests that viewing the video linked can help people understand why there is concern about the spread of diseases like pertussis.
Shamley advises:
- In November of 2017, ACHD received a call from the Health Aid at Concho Schools regarding a parent reported pertussis case. Once the parent was asked for additional information to complete a Communicable Disease Report(CDR) for the local health department, the father changed the diagnosis to bronchitis. The child’s name was provided and we were able to determine that the child had received no vaccinations due to a signed waiver, but we had no contact information for the parents. A case of pertussis was particularly concerning since we know that many of the students at Concho schools are unvaccinated.
- During the Christmas holidays, the health department received a (CDR) of a confirmed pertussis case. The case was a child residing in Concho. All the symptomatic family members of this child were treated as well as the non-symptomatic children as recommended by the CDC.
- ACHD met with Mr. Yoder to request that he inform parents about the pertussis that had been circulating in Concho Schools. ACHD provided a flyer with information about pertussis and asked that it be sent out to the families. We also requested to have an onsite immunization clinic to try to immunize anyone that wasn’t immunized for pertussis
- On Thursday February 1, 2018, ACHD received a call from a local health care clinic. They had received a call from the mother (known to be a part of the previously cited area) indicating she had 6 children with really bad coughs. She stated that the high school student had been coughing for 5.5 weeks and that the other 5 children had been coughing from 1 week to 3 weeks. The local clinic was unable to see the children and referred them to the ED in Show Low.
- ACHD has confirmed all the children were seen at Summit and all were diagnosed with pertussis and treated. ACHD also confirmed that the children had been in school up to Thursday February 1st and would have been contagious.
- ACHD left a message with Conch School, at 9:30, Thursday 01Feb18.
Here are the actions ACHD are taking regarding this issue:
- The local clinic will contact the mother of the children on Monday, February 5, 2018, to initiate prophylactic treatment of the other family members (CDC recommendation).
- ACHD will send out information to all the southern Apache County schools to alert them that pertussis is circulating in our communities. I will also send this information to the Navajo Epidemiology center to make them aware of what we have going on in our communities.
- ACHD has requested information to send to the WMRMC, Summit Hospital, Dr. Hamblin, Dr. Wilson and the 2 North Country Health Care Clinics from AzDHS to educate the providers in the community since many of them may not have seen pertussis in their practices.
- ACHD will also continue to reach out to Mr. Yoder to confirm information has gone out to parents. After research, it is not unusual for previously vaccinated close contacts to get pertussis and infect others, so we may be seeing more pertussis for a long time in our communities.