Officials on Tuesday were tracking a whooping cough outbreak at a central Arkansas middle school where three students recently tested positive for the highly contagious bacterial infection that causes violent coughing.
The Bryant School District said nurses at the middle school have been working with state health officials to monitor the potential spread of the disease at school and on buses after three students were recently diagnosed.
Nurses have also been contacting parents whose kids might have been exposed to the disease.
“If you have not heard from a school nurse by letter or a phone call, your child has NOT been identified as a student within exposure range of the ill students,” the school wrote in a statement to parents.
Officials still cautioned parents to check their children for symptoms of pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough.
It causes intense and severe coughing that makes it sometimes difficult to breathe, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whooping cough, which is contracted in a similar manner to the flu, spreads easily through the air when a person coughs or sneezes, according to the Arkansas Department of Health.
The disease can be deadly for small children, and it affects people of all ages, though it is highly treatable and preventable through a vaccine.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Heath said Arkansas public school students are required to get vaccinated for whooping cough unless a parent files an exception citing religious, philosophical or medical reasons.