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Whooping Cough?!

2010/05/27

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Yesterday we had a bit of a surprise here when a teacher emailed to tell us that he has caught Whooping Cough...otherwise known as 百日咳 in Japanese. (By the way this means 100 day cough!) If you are anything like me you will be imagining 19th Century orphans but it seems as though recently the number of adults catching the disease are rapidly increasing.

Traditionally it was small children who caught whopping cough and even I caught it when I was around 4 years old, I don't remeber much except for coughing constantly and not being able to sleep properly. Children (in the UK at least) are vaccinated for the disease so the number of cases is quite low but here in Japan it seems as though there are occasionally breakouts pf the disease which up until recently affected babies and elementary school age children.

According to a news report I saw the other day (completely by coincidence), 10years ago the percentage of cases for the uinder 18's was around 85%, however between then and 2009 these statistics completely changed and over 50% of cases were in adults.

So, how do you know if you have whooping cough? Well, the first sign is if someone close to you already has it, the disease spreads through the air and is highly contagious. According to our teacher he felt like he had a heavy cold to start with and this developed into a heavy cough. The incubation period is 7-10 days so if you are teaching in a school the odds are that you will have to take a week or so off work. (Which reminds me if you are not sure it might be an idea to check your contract for your comany's "sick day" policy.)

Anyway, my advice would be it is better to be safe than sorry so if you start to feel sick go straight to the doctor, take lots of rest and look after yourself!

For more whooping cough information please have a look at this page

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