Imagine every time you started to speak, you were overcome with a fit of coughing.
That's what John Merricle, 55, of Lima, has been feeling for the past two months. He has the latest confirmed case of pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough.
Pertussis is a respiratory disease caused by bacteria that can often be confused with the common cold. Symptoms include a runny nose, sneezing, fever and severe coughing that usually leads to gasping for breath, which creates a "whooping" sound. But when someone has pertussis, symptoms linger for weeks or months.
Sherry Merricle said her husband has felt symptoms of terrible coughing, vomiting and a stuffy nose since April. She said her husband saw his doctor at least six times since then and had an appointment set for June 15.
"He looked really bad that day so we went to the emergency room at St. Rita's Medical Center," Sherry Merricle said. "The doctor said he had a stomach flu. I had to persist them to test for whooping cough, because our daughter, who lives in Michigan, had it in April."
In the end the test was ordered and showed pertussis.
Becky Dershem, director of nursing at Allen County Health Department, said whooping cough is extremely contagious. Hospitals are required to report this disease to the health department when it is found so health officials can determine how to best handle the potential health threat.
"People think because the disease isn't seen on an everyday basis that it's gone, but it's alive and well," Dershem said. "The reason it's not seen a lot is because people get immunizations."
Three days after John Merricle's visit to St. Rita's, he was notified by the hospital and the health department that he had pertussis. The Merricles were quarantined to their house between June 18 to 22 and put on antibiotics. John Merricle's co-workers at Allen Metropolitan Housing Authority were also quarantined for five days on antibiotics in case they were infected. Quarantine in cases like this is routine, Dershem said.
"We had to close the maintenance department for a couple days and contract out work," said Cindy Ring, executive director at Allen Metropolitan Housing Authority. "We did lots of checking with the health department to make sure we contacted everyone that could have been exposed to it."
Dershem said children and adults can tolerate the symptoms, but whooping cough is lethal for babies.
Dr. Scott Stienecker, president of Infectious Diseases Society of Ohio, said he's witnessed two children die from whooping cough.
"It's a killer disease that won't disappear," Stienecker said. "Those deaths were the most awful thing I've seen. They were babies that weren't vaccinated, and their deaths were 100 percent preventable."
According to the Centers for Disease Control Web site, it's recommended that infants and children receive five doses of the diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine -- commonly abbreviated to DTaP. The vaccines are recommended at ages of 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 15 to 18 months and 4 to 6 years.
Stienecker said waning immunity occurs as the person ages and he recommends those between the ages of 12 and 65 get a booster vaccine called Tdap.
John Merricle hadn't been vaccinated since his initial series as a toddler. He plans on getting vaccinated as soon as he feels better, as will his wife.
Merricle was the second person with whooping cough in Lima this year. The first was of a child in April.
"This is alarming because there have been other outbreaks in the region since the beginning of the year," Dershem said. "This shows why it's important to continue getting vaccinated." Karen Smalley, infection control nurse at Mercer Health, said Mercer County has seen five cases of pertussis so far this year. All five were in the months of January and February. "They were outpatient cases, so they tested positive but weren't sick enough to be hospitalized," Smalley said. "A couple of the cases were related to each other."
In the majority of pertussis cases, sources said, the common thread is people not being vaccinated. There is a lot of worry by parents that vaccinations will have adverse effects on their children, including susceptibility to autism. But Dershem said there have been 16 studiesshowing no correlation between vaccinations and autism.
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