Jeffco has a distinction it most certainly doesn’t want: The county currently leads the metro area in the number of pertussis cases.
“We do have that dubious honor, unfortunately,” said Brown Kyle Brown, a public health nurse with Jeffco Public Health.
Brown, who works in communicable disease control and immunization, said the county had 309 reported cases of pertussis in 2013. The current outbreak has been classified as an epidemic by the state, Brown said.