BANGOR – Two students at Bangor High School have been diagnosed with whooping cough, a state official confirmed Tuesday evening.

Assistant State Epidemiologist Geoff Beckett said close friends and family members of the students will likely be placed on antibiotics to help prevent the spread of the contagious respiratory disease, but that more widespread preventive measures are not called for at this point.

“This disease is spread through very close, in-your-face contact,” he said. Saliva and mucus carry the pertussis virus that causes whooping cough. The virus is then spread by coughing, sneezing, kissing and other close contact, he said.

The primary objective, Beckett stressed, is to keep infants under 1 year old from contracting whooping cough. While the disease can cause up to six weeks of discomfort and lost time for anyone, babies are the most at risk of serious illness, hospitalization and even death, he said.

“We really want to keep high school students from bringing this home to their younger siblings,” he said.

Beckett said state public health workers have been in contact with the nurse at Bangor High School and that a notification and information about the disease have gone home with students most likely to have been in close contact with the affected students.

“It’s always a judgment call,” Beckett said, referring to the process of deciding who should be given preventive medications.

Bangor High School Principal Norris Nickerson said Tuesday evening that the school is complying with all state recommendations.

“We’re on top of it,” Nickerson said. He said he could not recall another instance of whooping cough in his 46-year tenure at Bangor High.

According to Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, whooping cough has been making a comeback in Maine, and nationally, over the past few years. Small outbreaks have occurred sporadically in schools and other settings, she said.

Routine childhood immunizations are not 100 percent effective, Mills said, and immunity typically “wears off” during the middle school years. A new vaccine for teens and adults is now available and recommended.

The disease is characterized by prolonged episodes of violent coughing that leave the victim breathless. In young children, a “whoop” may be heard at the end of the coughing spell as the victim struggles for breath, but in older people it is usually less pronounced. The intense coughing may also cause some people to vomit.

Whooping cough is treated with an antibiotic to lessen the severity and duration of symptoms and to decrease the likelihood of spreading the virus. But it’s not unusual for coughing episodes to continue for several weeks, even with an antibiotic.

Individuals with symptoms of whooping cough should be considered infectious and should not attend school, work, or day care until they have completed five days of an appropriate antibiotic treatment.

Maine doctors reported 174 cases of whooping cough in 2006, 82 cases in 2007, and a total of six cases through the end of January.

For information about whooping cough, visit the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/default.htm

mhaskell@bangordailynews.net

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