Since April, 32 people, age 11 days to 72 years, have contracted whooping cough in Tulsa County.
Seeing an uptick in warm-weather months for a largely preventable disease is a bad sign, say health officials, who worry what's ahead during the winter when the disease, typically spread by coughing, is more prevalent.
Whooping cough - pertussis - can kill, especially the very young who cannot be vaccinated until they are 2 months old.
There's an easy solution: Get vaccinated and keep vaccinations current. For those 10 through 64, there's the tdap vaccine; for those younger, the DtaP is recommended. Both protect against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.
Vaccination advice also applies for several other deadly diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, polio, and hepatitis A and B.
More than a decade ago former Oklahoma first lady Cathy Keating launched an initiative to increase the number of children immunized. The campaign worked - immunization coverage for children 19-35 months improved significantly.
Unfortunately, the message didn't stick. By 2012, Oklahoma was among the 10 states with the highest percentage of children receiving no immunizations.
Most parents would not dream of putting a child in a vehicle without a car seat or safety restraints. The danger is far too great. Yet, last year health officials here estimated that only 60 percent of area babies and toddlers received their vaccinations on schedule, if ever.
Some estimates indicate a one-in-a-million chance of complications from vaccinations. Consider the risks of not inoculating children (and adults, where advised) against these deadly diseases. Before vaccinations for chickenpox became widely used, nearly 11,000 people were hospitalized and about 100 people died; before the diphtheria vaccine, 100,000 to 200,000 cases were reported annually in the U.S., and as many as 15,000 died each year. In the 1960s, during the nation's largest rubella outbreak, 11,230 unborn babies died, 2,100 newborns died and another 20,000 were born with birth defects.
With a well-inoculated population, diseases such as polio often all but disappear. Unfortunately, people let their guard down. The potential for these diseases, however, never entirely vanishes. Without vaccinations everyone is at risk.
It's time for Oklahoma to get back on track. Step up the education campaign.
Editorials
The 6,300 employees at the American Airlines Maintenance Facility in Tulsa could use some certainty, but they're going to have to wait.
The loss of 12 lives, 13 counting the suspect, in the Navy shipyard shootings Monday is tragic. With each killing spree the natural reaction is to search for the motive or the psychological reason for such a horrific event.
