Doctors Report Rise in Vaccine-Preventable Illnesses Among Children

Doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis. The concern among doctors comes on the heels of a resurgence of measles nationwide.

For some of these diseases, national data show clear and substantial increases in recent years; for others, the increases are small, or there are anecdotal indications from doctors on the ground of increases that public statistics do not currently confirm.

Hospital Observations Dr.

Meghan Hofto, a pediatric hospitalist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said she and her colleagues have treated more children than usual with persistent diarrhea this year. A child with a run-of-the-mill stomach virus might need a day or so of IV fluids, but these patients were being hospitalized for three or four days.

The culprit is rotavirus, which once caused tens of thousands of hospitalizations a year in the United States but was largely swept away by vaccines introduced 20 years ago. These vaccines were so effective that Dr. Hofto could recall treating only four or five children with rotavirus in the past decade.

Now, she said she had treated about that many already this year, and none of them were vaccinated. While most children recover, these diseases are not benign. Many children endure extended hospitalizations. Some infections can be fatal.