NORTHBROOK, Ill., Jan. 9 (UPI) -- The American College of Chest Physicians says adults need to be vaccinated for whooping cough, even if they were vaccinated as kids.
Because antibiotics are only effective early on in the infection, preventing whooping cough with a vaccine is the only way to eventually eliminate the disease, the group said in new guidelines published in the January issue of the journal Chest.
Once whooping cough takes hold, the coughing patient is at risk of serious complications of coughing, such as vomiting, breaking ribs, passing out, and passing the infection on to others, the report said.
"Most of us think of whooping cough as a childhood disease, yet 28 percent of whooping cough cases in the United States is in adults," said Richard Irwin M.D. of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "Although most of us were vaccinated against whooping cough when we were children, the older vaccine only gives protection for less than 10 years."
Irwin said there is a now a new safe and effective whooping cough vaccine that can prevent adults from contracting this disease.
