BY JIM HALL
Stafford County school officials have notified parents that a student at Winding Creek Elementary School contracted a respiratory disease that may have been pertussis.
The school system sent a letter home to Winding Creek parents yesterday, telling them about the illness.
The letter also asked parents to seek medical care if their child develops a cough that lasts for two weeks, or one that gets worse over time or is accompanied by difficulty breathing or vomiting.
The affected child at Winding Creek is an 11-year old fifth-grader, said Dr. Thomas Franck, director of the Rappahannock Area Health District.
Franck said that lab tests were not done to confirm the diagnosis of pertussis, or whooping cough. The child was treated by physicians and received a course of antibiotics. The child is no longer considered contagious, he said.
"We don't know what we're dealing with here. I wouldn't jump to conclusions about whooping cough," he said. "There are 100 other things this could be, too."
Franck said he did not know what the child's symptoms were. He said the child had received a childhood vaccination and a more recent booster shot against pertussis.
Pertussis is a contagious bacterial infection of the respiratory tract. It is spread by the cough droplets of an infected person. Symptoms appear three to 21 days after contact.
The disease appears first as a cold. After two weeks, the accompanying cough may become severe with coughing spells that last for a minute or more.
At the end of a spell, a child may gasp for air with a distinctive whooping sound. The disease is treated with antibiotics.
A pertussis vaccine is part of the childhood DTaP vaccination. A 2006 state law requires rising sixth-graders to receive a booster dose in the Tdap vaccine.
Five cases of pertussis have been reported in the Fredericksburg area through October, and 126 cases have been reported statewide, according to Virginia Department of Health statistics. Last year at this time, 103 cases were reported statewide.
Jim Hall: 540/374-5433
Email: jhall@freelancestar.com