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Alaska study finds pertussis vaccine is extremely protective during statewide outbreak
News brief52 minutes ago.
Sarah Boden
Topics
Public Health
Pertussis
The pertussis vaccine works really well, according to a new study comparing kids in Alaska who had gotten three or more doses of the vaccine with children who were unvaccinated, or undervaccinated.
The diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine is a routine childhood combination immunization that's given in a five-dose series, starting at two months of age, with the last dose between the ages of four and six years.
A paper yesterday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) found that, compared with fully vaccinated children, those who were unvaccinated had approximately 26 times the odds of having a confirmed case of pertussis, sometimes called whooping cough, which is caused by a bacterial infection.
The paper focused on kids from the ages of six months through six years during Alaska's 2024 pertussis outbreak, which saw the highest case rate on record in the state. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Alaska Department of Health used records from VacTrAK, the database that tracks all vaccinations administered in the state. As a control, the study included kids who were treated for an acute cough, but either tested negative for pertussis or did not receive testing.
The overall adjusted vaccine effectiveness (VE) rate against pertussis among children who had received three or more DTaP doses was 96.2%. Also, VE was 85.3% among kids who were partially vaccinated, meaning they had received just one or two DTaP shots.
Pertussis can lead to fractured ribs, brain damage, even death
These real-world findings support childhood vaccination recommendations, said the authors, who pointed to previous research showing that unvaccinated kids are more likely than those who are vaccinated to experience severe illness or require hospitalization.Pertussis can lead to devastating outcomes among young children, including brain damage and deaths: A provisional CDC report found that 16 people died from this bacterial infection in 2025, including 10 infants. Other complications include pneumonia, vomiting after a coughing fit, or coughing that is so frequent and violent that a child fractures their rib.
The DTaP vaccination rate among kindergartners in the United States has fallen in recent years. CDC data show it dropped to 92.0% for the 2025-26 school year; in 2017-18, it was 95.2%.
US immigration enforcement disrupted pediatric emergency care for Hispanic families, study notes
News brief53 minutes ago.
Meghan Holohan
Topics
Public Health
In August 2025, President Donald Trump deployed members of the National Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to patrol Washington, DC. The increase in visibility of federal troops and law enforcement had a chilling effect on Spanish speakers and Hispanic people’s willingness to seek healthcare, a paper published in JAMA Network Open this week finds.
“The federal deployment of the National Guard troops, ICE, and other federal law enforcement personnel in Washington, DC, was associated with an immediate decline in pediatric ED [emergency department] visits,” wrote the authors, from Children’s National Hospital. “This decline was most pronounced among patients who preferred Spanish and among Hispanic patients regardless of preferred language.”
Unintended consequences
Researchers wondered how the federal deployment in Washington, DC, affected the number of children visiting the hospital for emergency treatment. They compared daily pediatric ED visits from June 1 to September 30, 2025, with the same period in 2024 to see if federal law-enforcement activity affected who sought care. This included 21,822 visits from 6,253 (28.7%) Hispanic patients.People who spoke Spanish immediately changed how they interacted with healthcare after federal deployment and were less likely to go to the ED, averaging 10.4 fewer visits per day. But families who spoke English increased their number of ED trips by 5.6 more per day.
Hispanic patients also shied away from pediatric EDs, with 13.3 visits fewer per day than in the previous year. In contrast, non-Hispanic patient visits rose by 6.2 per day.
“These findings suggest that immigration enforcement may have unintended consequences for children’s use of emergency care,” the authors said.
Quick takes: US human avian flu case, dengue in Florida, plague in Madagascar, MERS in Saudi Arabia, more polio cases
News briefToday at 11:55 a.m.
Mary Van Beusekom, MS
Topics
Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
Dengue
Plague
MERS-CoV
Polio
- Yesterday, Yakima County, Washington, officials reported an H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infection in a resident exposed to infected dairy cows. The case comes a week after the state’s first H5N1 detection in dairy cattle at two Yakima County farms. The person is not seriously ill and is isolating at home. The risk of avian flu to the general public remains low, the news release said.
- Florida has added 72 new locally acquired cases of dengue fever in its latest week of reporting, for a total of 368 for the year through October 10. It is the largest US dengue outbreak in decades, affecting eight counties. Most cases (310) have been in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, but cases are increasing in Pinellas County (37).
- Four cases of plague have been confirmed in four districts in Madagascar since the end of July, and five more suspected cases were detected last week, according to media reports. The type of plague, which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, wasn’t specified. About 200 contacts of the patients have been given preventive treatment to stem further transmission, and the government has launched flea insecticide spraying operations and awareness campaigns focused on hygiene and rodent control.
- Eight cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), including one death, were confirmed in Saudi Arabia from January 1 to October 5, the World Health Organization reported this week. MERS is a viral zoonotic disease for which dromedary camels are the primary animal reservoir; two patients reported direct contact with camels, while the rest had no known camel exposure. Officials say the cases aren’t epidemiologically linked.
- This week, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative noted 14 cases of polio in seven countries. Afghanistan and Pakistan each documented one case of wild poliovirus type 1, the Democratic Republic of Congo logged seven cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2), Madagascar reported two cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 (cVDPV1), Mali noted two cVDPV2 cases, Nigeria documented one circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 3 case, and Somalia added one cVDPV1 case.