Suffolk acts to contain whooping cough

Suffolk County health officials have issued a letter of caution to day camp directors and parents in hopes of containing a whooping cough outbreak that's infected several dozen Smithtown children.

While the camps haven't had problems yet, directors Thursday distributed the message to parents.

"I'd rather be safe than sorry," said Sue Rassekh, senior physical director of the Great South Bay YMCA in Bay Shore. The Y's five sites serve about 1,000 children a day.

Ivy League Day Camp in Smithtown sent copies of the letter home with its 500 children. It outlines stages of the illness and urges early treatment and keeping sick children at home. Linda Kaplan, one of the directors, said parents "need to be informed."

The outbreak this month has triggered 45 cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, a highly communicable and sometimes fatal infection. All 45 cases were in children.

Eleven additional cases not linked to the outbreak have been recorded in Suffolk so far this year, health officials said. Those cases include the death of an infant in April who was too young to be vaccinated. Further details were not available.

The number of cases this year has topped the 54 reported in Suffolk for all of 2010. There have been 15 cases so far this year in Nassau County.

A Nassau infant also died in April of probable pertussis, but there were "other complicating factors and the final cause of death is not yet known," said Mary Ellen Laurain, spokeswoman for the Nassau County Department of Health.

All of the children linked to the Smithtown outbreak had been vaccinated, said Dr. Kathy Thompson, Suffolk's director of communicable diseases. She noted the vaccine is only 80 percent effective in some people and that protection often wanes.

But those who've been immunized experience a milder bout of pertussis, and when children and adults are vaccinated, they provide a "cocoon of protection" around vulnerable newborns, she said. "We are encouraging people to be immunized and to have their children immunized not only for their own protection but the public at large," she said.

Children associated with the outbreak attended three schools: St. James Elementary School, Tacken Elementary School and Nesaquake Middle School.

Active infections can be knocked out with antibiotics. The disease is characterized by severe coughing -- spells accelerated by a toxin secreted from the pertussis bacterium, which causes formation of thick mucus in the lungs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says pertussis has been on the rise in recent years, reaching epidemic proportions last year in California. A new law there requires students in grades 7-12 to get booster vaccinations.