5 Simple Ways to Protect Yourself from Whooping Cough
As the winter season nears, whooping cough also hits harder and wider. If you’ve recently visited a clinic and saw your doctor, whom you usually see in Cherokee uniforms, you might have noticed a significantly high number of children, including infants and adults, struck by whooping cough and waiting for their turn to be checked. It’s a very worrisome scene since this year’s epidemic has already claimed 10 children, of less than three months old, from among the 6,400 reported cases in California alone.
This highly contagious disease, which is caused by contracting bordetella pertussis bacteria, is spreading very fast. How can you be able to counter its spread or prevent yourself and your family from getting infected?
- Get yourself vaccinated. You don’t only get to protect yourself from the disease, but also your family. If you have infants at home, it is much more important to get everyone vaccinated.
- Be vigilant of any symptoms. If you notice somebody to have been showing symptoms like common cold, runny nose or congestion, sneezing, and or mild cough and fever, immediately seek medical care.
- Don’t pass it on to your colleagues, schoolmates and colleagues. If you have the symptoms, do not go off for work or school to avoid passing the bacteria. House yourself until symptoms are gone.
- Practice and encourage health friendly habits such as hand washing as well as coughing and sneezing into a tissue. Keep a hand sanitizer always around as well. And avoid touching just anything, especially things to which hands are often laid over.
- Keep your home clean and spotless. Regularly laundering clothes, bed sheets, curtains, and other similar things used at home will keep unwanted bacteria at bay. Regular dusting and use of antibacterial cleaners will also remove or kill diseases-causing pathogens.
Some are taken from thekansan.com
