As of this weekend, there were two laboratory-confirmed cases of whooping cough in Great Bend, Barton County Health Director Shelly Schneider said Monday morning. One of the cases is in a school-age child and the other in a younger child, both of whom had been vaccinated.
The Health Department is now busy making follow-up visits, she said. Her staff is tracing 300 contacts.
The county is still seeing flu-, para-flu-, pertussis- and para-pertussis-like symptoms, Schneider said.
If a county lasts 41 days without a confirmed case, the Kansas Department of Health Environment will lift the outbreak status. Barton County was at day nine until Saturday so it started all over, Schneider said.
None the less, “vaccinations are still protecting us,” she said. “But, nothing is 100 percent.”
Schneider said her employees have really pulled together and “gone above and beyond” in dealing with the on-going pertussis outbreak. Such a incident would be devastating to a small county or a county that is not in a strong fiscal position.