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Whooping cough endemic among UK children
Last Updated: 2006-07-07 10:01:14 -0400 (Reuters Health)
LONDON - Whooping cough may be endemic among young children in Britain where nearly 40 percent of youngsters who visit their family doctor with a persistent cough have evidence of the infection, researchers reported Friday.
After studying 172 children who had been treated for a cough lasting more than two weeks, they found that 64 showed signs of whooping cough although nearly 86 percent had been immunized against the illness.
"Previous research in several countries has shown that pertussis is an endemic disease among adolescents and adults," said Anthony Harnden of Oxford University.
"Our research suggests that in the United Kingdom pertussis is also endemic among younger school-age children."
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a contagious bacterial infection of the respiratory tract, easily spread by coughing and sneezing.
Most children are vaccinated against the disease, which was once a major cause of lung and brain damage and even death. It is still a serious health problem in poor countries. In 2002, an estimated 294,000 people worldwide died of the illness, according to the World Health Organization.
Research has shown that neither infection nor immunization offers life-long immunity against pertussis.
Harnden and his team, who reported the findings in the British Medical Journal, said family doctors should be aware that any child with a persistent cough could have whooping cough.
Children with pertussis have a cough that lasts for about 16 weeks, Harnden added.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
EU disease agency warns of seasonal bird flu
Last Updated: 2006-07-07 16:26:11 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Jeremy Smith
BRUSSELS - Europeans should get used to a seasonal pattern of bird flu affecting poultry as the lethal H5N1 strain of the disease is highly likely to reappear in the near future, a senior EU health official said on Friday.
Although H5N1 bird flu remains primarily an animal virus and poorly adapted to humans, it poses enough of a threat to human health that the EU can not afford to let up its guard because more outbreaks in birds are almost guaranteed, she said. "Even if we had a major outbreak of H5N1 in poultry, the risk for EU citizens would still be low," Zsuzsanna Jakab, director of the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), told a news briefing. "It may be a low-level threat but one that we must take very seriously. In birds, it has peaked for now but it is very likely it will come back," she said. "We have to get used to a seasonal pattern -- it's quite likely it will reappear in Europe." Occasional cases are still popping up in the EU although with far less regularity than during the January-March period. On Friday, Spain's Agriculture Ministry confirmed the country's first case of H5N1 bird flu. And in mid-June, Hungary detected the disease strain in poultry. Since 2003, it has spread rapidly from Asia to Europe and Africa, taking 131 human lives among 229 cases in 10 countries. Some 50 countries worldwide have reported cases in animals. So far, bird flu has only been transmitted to humans who were in close contact with infected live birds and no sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus has occurred. "Any outbreak in birds carries a risk of humans getting infected," Jakab said. "The more human exposure to H5N1 around the bird, the more opportunity there is for the virus to mutate. We have to prevent every human case." EU cases of H5N1 in wild birds and domestic poultry peaked in early 2006 and the European Commission, the EU executive, had warned of more outbreaks as the spring migration neared and new bird species arrived from Africa. "The much-feared explosion of cases failed to take place," said Robert Madelin, director-general of the Commission's health and consumer protection department. "We have stepped up biosecurity measures since last autumn," he told the briefing. "A migratory season is now known to be a risk factor. We will be extremely vigilant (in the autumn) and hope to avoid a multiplication of cases."
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. |
