Ritzville nurse offers info on whooping cough in Washington

You may have noticed increased media attention to pertussis (whooping cough) this past year.

There has been a recent push to educate the public on this disease since infection rates have been on the rise.

Last year there were 44 reported cases in Washington in infants alone, several of those in Adams County.

Pertussis can be well controlled by routine vaccinations, which have reduced the national infection rate by 98 percent since introduced in the 1940s. Historically the United States has outbreaks every 2-5 years and Washington’s rate is on the rise: 291 confirmed cases in 2009, jumping to 6...