The Utah County Health Department is getting unexpected help promoting its National Infant Immunization Day later this month: A whooping cough epidemic.

After years of averaging 11 cases a year of pertussis, Utah County experienced 110 cases of whooping cough in 2005 and already have 80 cases on the books this year. Most of the sick are teens and adults, due in large part to childhood immunization programs.

The problem is that the vaccine wears off after childhood, leaving people vulnerable to the disease.

In adults, whooping cough is usually an inconvenience -- fever, sore throat, vomiting and a hideous cough that refuses to go away for three months. The problem is, these people can spread the disease to infants who have not been immunized. Children get sicker than adults from it, requiring hospitalization in some cases. In the 1940s and 1950s, whooping cough was among the top ten causes of death in Utah.

The solution is simple: immunize.

The health department is offering a pertussis vaccine with the tetanus booster, which people are supposed to get every 5-10 years. By adding the whooping cough to the tetanus booster, people will be able to renew their immunity and rein in this disease.

Of course, that depends upon people keeping their vaccinations current. That can be a challenge for busy people, but it is one that is worth it. There are a few people who think that immunization is not their problem; if everyone else does it, they don't need it.

Immunizations do not just benefit the one getting the shot. It benefits everyone they come in contact with. Someone carrying a contagious disease can spread it to the people they come in contact with. By being immunized, the same person protects himself and his entire social circle. The more people who get immunized, the greater the protection for the community.

Consider this: One of the factors that led the United States to win the Revolutionary War was Gen. Washington's decision to inoculate his troops against smallpox. Washington issued the order after a smallpox epidemic in Gen. Horatio Gate's command put half the soldiers in the hospital and sidelined that part of the army for five weeks.

The inoculations allowed the Continental Army to fight without losing men to the disease, plus it thwarted British attempts to use smallpox as a weapon in the war, as they had done in campaigns against Indians. The British would abandon soldiers who had smallpox or leave behind clothing and blankets used by smallpox victims to spread the disease among unsuspecting people.

Today, smallpox has been virtually eradicated because of immunization and inoculation programs, and polio and measles are in serious decline as well. But all it takes is a few people who refuse to be immunized to allow a disease to spread.

So please, if your whooping cough vaccination lapsed, renew it not just for yourself, but everyone else.