8 more Children's workers diagnosed with whooping cough

Eight more staff members at Children's Hospital Boston have tested positive for whooping cough, bringing to 33 the number of workers infected, city health authorities reported yesterday.

The outbreak at Children's is the largest in recent memory at a Boston healthcare facility, said Dr. Anita Barry, Boston's director of communicable disease control. With the latest confirmatory lab results, the Children's outbreak has now eclipsed a cluster of cases in September at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, where 30 staff members were diagnosed with the highly infectious bacterial disease, also known as pertussis.

According to the state Department of Public Health, 15 to 35 healthcare workers statewide come down with the disease during a typical year.

Disease investigators have said they believe whooping cough was carried into Children's by a 19-month -old patient. They continue to investigate whether a 3-year-old girl who has the illness contracted it at the hospital or before she arrived there.

Barry said the eight additional cases reported yesterday do not reflect recent infections. Instead, she said, most of those staff members began displaying symptoms in mid-October. So far, no hospital workers or patients have faced life-threatening complications as a result of the outbreak.

"A lot of people have felt pretty miserable from this, but I don't know anyone who has suffered serious consequences," said Barry, who reiterated that it is safe for parents to take their children to the hospital for treatment.

Michelle Davis, a Children's spokeswoman, said the hospital is continuing to encourage staff members who show any signs of the disease, which in its earliest phase mimics the common cold, to come forward.

Workers with symptoms are sent home for five days and told to take powerful antibiotics before they can return to their jobs. Yesterday, 138 staff members were still furloughed.

"It's certainly putting pressure on the system, but we're meeting the needs" of patients, Davis said.

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.