Seniors & Whooping Cough Shots

Getting shots is part of growing up and staying healthy, even when you 65.

The government wants seniors to get the whooping cough shot, mainly because of a big outbreak in California.
Whooping cough, known in the medical community of pertussis, was fairly common back before the 1950's. Outbreaks happened quite often and small children usually fell victim to its persistent coughing fits. For some, it even turned deadly because the disease wouldn't allow them to get in enough of a breath, causing the classic whooping sound that gives the disease it's name.

But once the vaccine came out against pertussis, outbreaks dropped dramatically. But now we are seeing more cases of whooping cough and more alarmingly more deaths than we have in decades, especially in California were over six thousand cases have been reported and 10 infants have died because of it.

Nine of those 10 were infants too young to even get vaccinated so the government is now recommending seniors over 65 who are around infants to get the pertussis shot. When an adult gets whooping cough they usually only have minor symptoms but can spread it to the little ones. So, the government is hoping that getting seniors vaccinated will stop the spread of this outbreak and most importantly prevent any more infant deaths.