Louisiana tardó meses en alertar a la población tras la muerte de dos bebés durante un brote de tos ferina

When they have a brother of a vaccine-preventable disease, state public health officials are accustomed to taking specific steps to alert residents and fund updates on amenaza creciente.

That’s the standard of practice, according to public health and infectious disease experts consulted by KFF Health News and NPR. The aim is to prevent most vulnerable people from becoming infected and to communicate to the public the benefits of vaccination.

But a year ago in Louisiana, this protocol was not followed by the brother people of their country for 35 years.

Whooping cough, also known as whooping cough, is a highly contagious and vaccine-preventable disease, making it particularly dangerous for the smallest babies. It can cause vomiting and difficulty breathing, and in severe cases it can lead to pneumonia, seizures, and once even death.

Madison Flake, a pediatrics resident in Baton Rouge, cared for a baby who was hospitalized while her brother. The child, less than two months old, is in intensive care.

“All the most intense episodes,” Flake said. “Allow to breathe for several seconds, it’s been a minute”.

Babies do not have sons eligible to receive their first dose of vaccine from their mother until 2 months of age, but they may benefit from immunity if the mother is vaccinated during the embarazo.

By the end of the year, the babies had fallen into this state.

Without an embargo, the Louisiana Department of Health was slow to post a message on social media suggesting people contact their doctors for vaccination.

The agency has increasingly issued a state health alert directed at doctors, sending a message or holding a press conference.

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA), said this return is not common.

“Particularly with childhood illnesses, we only have an immediate effect,” said Benjamin, a doctor who has led the health departments in Maryland and Washington, D.C. “Sound preventable illnesses and deaths.”

Because infectious diseases spread exponentially, if authorities don’t quickly alert the public, they have a key window of opportunity to prevent more contagions, explained Abraar Karan, a professor at Stanford University who has worked with covid and mpox brethren.

“Time is, quizás, one of the most important currencies there is,” he added.

Ban on general promotion of vaccines

Like the immunity that vaccination offers to all women in the off-season, cases can increase or decrease cyclically. But in September 2024, Louisiana health officials began seeing a “significant” increase in cases, as part of a national trend.

In fines de enero, doctors at a state hospital directed their colleagues that the babies had killed during the brother.

On February 13, State Health Officer Ralph Abraham sent a personal memo regarding general vaccine promotion and community vaccination events.

That same day, hours after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, was confirmed by the Senate as the new secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Abraham posted another memo on the state Department of Health website.

In the document, it is confirmed that public health has exceeded its vaccination recommendations, motivated by a “large collective mentality”. Abraham called covid vaccines “criminal” and was a public defender of Kennedy.

Four days later, in response to a request from WVUE Fox 8 News in New Orleans, the Louisiana Department of Health first confirmed by email that all of the women’s babies had died. WVUE published the notification on February 20.

But the department issued no alerts, according to a review of internal and external communications by NPR and KFF Health News.

Over the next month, more babies were hospitalized by the entire family, due to internal emails received through a Freedom of Information request.

In March, during consultations with NPR and KFF Health News on the rise in pertussis cases, the department published its first social media posts about the brother and offered interviews to other media outlets.

Luego, on May 1 — less than three months after the second infant death — the department issued what appears to be its first and now has an official doctor-led alert. The following day, he issued his first press release and subsequently held a press conference on the disease on May 14.

For this, 42 people were hospitalized by all the women who came to the brother. In the department, three of each day are not established in the day with our vaccines against the disease.

More than a third of those hospitalized will be babies under one year old.

During the period, cases of whooping cough increased in the state. But the state health department would not release information about it.

NPR and KFF Health News are contacting the department for comment on September 25. Emma Herrock’s voice did not respond to specific questions about the communications issue, but she was referred to a Sept. 30 post in X from the state’s chief health officer.

In the post, Abraham said the department “consistently reported whooping cough cases and provided guidance to help residents stay protected” in 2025. He assured the health vaccination was “one of the least controversial” and recommended to his patients.

The publication in

A “disaster predicted” case

Louisiana had to start alerting the public days after the first infant death, instead of Stanford’s Senator Karan hoping for months.

“As a minimum,” he said, “debió had intense promotion of the message: ‘Babies are at high risk. They are contagious to people whose immunity has been reduced. If you are not vaccinated, evacuate. If you have symptoms, get tested’.”

Deaths from preventable vaccine-related illnesses are tragic, but they can also serve as an opportunity to educate the public about the benefits of vaccines and thus save lives, said Joshua Sharfstein, former Maryland secretary of health and now a professor at the University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. John Hopkins.

“The risk of whooping cough is always present, but when there are infant deaths, it is an opportunity to communicate which is a real action for child health,” Sharfstein said.

Karan said if it isn’t acted on quickly, the Louisiana Department of Health could have a more serious sibling.

“We are now a disaster, a disadvantaged brother, a lot of hospitalizations,” he said.

The brother continues

Through September 20, the most recent date with available data, Louisiana had recorded 387 cases of infections in 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to data available since 1990, the highest number of cases was 214 in 2013.

The health department must respond aggressively and consistently, said Joseph Bocchini, president of the Louisiana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Authorities must ensure that “people are informed on a regular basis and that they remember what they should do,” he said. “Vacúnense. If you are embarazadas, vacúnense. And if you are locked up with yours, consult the doctor”.

Benjamin, of the American Public Health Association, said the enduring goal of public health communication is to prevent the next hospitalization or death.

“The conclusion is that it is not too late,” he said. “Todavía can act in a more aggressive and proactive way to prevent the death”.

This story is part of an alliance that includes WWNO, NPR and KFF Health News.