Exposure to Whooping Cough question

[Melaine]

To further the drama of my week, I just received an email that I child in my girls' VBS class has since been diagnosed with Whooping Cough.

They attached a letter from DHEC saying that "if you child develops a cough between July 22-Aug 8" that you may need to do a culture, etc.

None of us have had any symptoms does that mean I should give this no further thought since the date hast passed? Of course, I have not had DS vax'd yet because a) I'm a raving worry wart about this and have been debating over exactly how delayed and how selective I want his schedule to be and b) the girls had an extreme reaction to their 2 month shots and c) I haven't wanted to throw possible side effects into the mix while trying to figure out the puzzle of UTIs, reflux, jaundice, MSPI and BFing challenges.

Do you guys think I should push forward his vax because of this known exposure or just proceed as usual? I guess I am confused about this letter since it just came this morning but the dates are passed?

[lalasmama]

If no one's showing symptoms, I'd let it go...

[JTsMom]

Even if you had done 1 round, that most likely wouldn't have given him immunity. Also, the majority of cases have been in vaxed people, so even if he had every round, you still wouldn't be home free.

Is VBS over?

[sntm]

I'd probably get him that vax now, though. I'm an off schedule vaccinator also but pertussis has been bad this year. I gave him just the tdap and then two weeks later did the others.

[Melaine]

VBS is over, yes. It was 3 weeks ago I think. I'd been planning on getting the pertussis vax sooner rather than later. It has been bad.

[Tondi G]

doesn't the pertussis vax only lessen the transmission to others and maybe shorten the duration but not prevent pertussis?

I have a friend on the east coast who has WC right now and she realized that her DD had a bad reaction to the dtap at 2 or 4 months and they stopped with the P portion so her DD also has it right now as well. The cough is so scary. My friend actually made a video of her episode and it was frightening to listen to.

Hope your girls don't come down with anything. I would probably go ahead and get the vax for your little guy though (both of my kiddos were vaxed on schedule) .... just get started and move forward selectively.