Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is taking steps to ensure a handful of recently reported cases of whooping cough do not turn into an outbreak.
Six CHCCS students, three at Mary Scroggs Elementary and three at Carrboro Elementary School, have come down with the infection — which can be lethal for infants — in the last two weeks. The most recent case was reported March 12.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a bacterial respiratory infection that begins similarly to the common cold and features a heavy, violent cough. Though symptoms typically begin about a week after exposure, it can take 21 days for them to fully develop.
Students in close contact with those infected who show symptoms like coughing, sneezing or congestion must stay home until they have taken at least five days of antibiotics, including the time it takes for the tests to process.
“If the physician suspects a case of pertussis, then yes, they would have to stay out of school while it’s being confirmed,” said Stephanie Willis, district health coordinator.
CHCCS is also requiring close contacts of infected students — classmates, bus-mates or friends — to take a five-day antibiotic treatment to attend school.
Students listed as close contacts who choose not to take the treatment must stay home for 21 days from their last exposure.
Willis said the treatment, which follows the guidelines set forth by the state health department, is meant to prevent the disease from spreading.
“It’s within parents’ rights not to immunize their children and that is within the law, but it won’t prevent them from getting pertussis,” Willis said.
