Cases of whooping cough are more than six times higher than they were this time last year, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control show.
Officials reported 553 cases for the week ending December 7 — the most recent figures available — compared to 105 in the same week last year.
Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can cause persistent coughing fits and make it hard to breathe.
Also known as pertussis or “100-day-cough”, it can lead to serious illness and even death. Infants, who may experience less obvious symptoms, are at the greatest risk from whooping cough.
But a vaccine offered to all pregnant women and babies offers good protection against the disease in infancy.
What are the symptoms of whooping cough?
It’s important to know how the disease looks in patients of various ages, as it can result in different symptoms — and different risks — at different stages of life.
Whooping cough may initially look like a cold, before becoming more serious one to two weeks after infection. Antibiotics can help reduce illness, but only when given in the first two weeks after infection.
Hand-washing, covering your mouth during coughing, and following other basic hygiene measures can all help prevent the spread of whooping cough.
Vaccination is the most effective way to limit the spread of the disease, and may make symptoms less severe.
Whooping cough symptoms in babies
Infants aged 12 months or younger are at the greatest risk from whooping cough, which may initially look like a cold.
For some babies, it will look like a cold for the entire duration of the disease. But for others, more severe symptoms will develop.
Babies often don’t experience the distinctive type of coughing that can develop in older children and adults.
Instead, they may experience apnea — interruptions in breathing that can be life-threatening.
This makes it harder to get oxygen around the body and can turn caucasian babies’ skin, lips, tongue, ears, or lips blue.
Babies with darker skin may develop grey lips, tongue, ears, and skin. Parents and carers of babies with darker skin may spot greyness more easily on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, lips, gums, and inside the eyelids.
Babies may also develop pneumonia — which may cause chest pain that gets worse when a child breathes or coughs — seizures and deydration.
Cyanosis, difficulty breathing, pneumonia, dehydration and seizures are all emergencies that require immediate medical attention.
Children under 6 months with whooping cough may be treated in hospital hospitalized regardless of their symptoms.
Whooping cough symptoms in children and adults
Adults and children over the age of one also often experience cold-like symptoms when infected with whooping cough.
After one to two weeks, this can develop into more severe, persistent coughing bouts that may be accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound as infected individuals try to draw breath. Some adults may not make this noise.
These coughing bouts can last several minutes and may be worse at night. They can be so severe they make you cough up thick mucus and even vomit.
They may also make infected individuals go red in the face, but this is more common in adults.
People with whooping cough may find themselves coughing for weeks and even months as they heal. Even after recovery, other respiratory illnesses can make coughing fits return.
How Widespread Is Whooping Cough?
So far, more than 30,250 cases have been reported in the U.S. in 2024. That’s a big increase on the number recorded by this point in 2023, which was about 6,150. There are also more reports so far than in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cases of several contagious diseases fell as the pandemic raged and people stayed home to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It’s likely that measures used to stop the novel disease also helped keep cases of other infectious illnesses down.
Although whooping cough appears to have bounced back to a more typical pattern, cases remain low compared to previous decades, according to the CDC.
Dozens of states across the contiguious U.S. and Alaska reported cases this week, with more than a fifth (124) found in the East North Central. Ohio recorded the highest number of individual cases of any state at 81.
Over the year so far, 7,675 cases have hit the East North Central area, which consists of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
The Middle Atlantic (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) has seen the second-highest number of whooping cough reports at nearly 5,700.
Other countries have also reported increasing cases, including the U.K., where several babies have died from the disease.
Cases are expected to rise in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, as the disease returns to typical pre-pandemic patterns. Whooping cough peaks in cycles roughly every 3 to 5 years.
When Are Kids Vaccinated For Whooping Cough?
Before the vaccine was introduced in the 1940s, the U.S. typically saw hundreds of thousands of cases every year. It reduces the chance of catching the disease, and may result in less severe symptoms.
The vaccine offers strong protection, but this usually fades in the years after it’s given.
Babies are offered several shots against whooping cough at two months, four months and six months. The combined innoculations also protect against diseases like tetanus, diptheria, polio and hepatitus B, depending on the brand.
Children are then usually offered booster shots when they’re between 15 and 18 months old, and between four and six years old.
The CDC recommends preteens get a further boosters between the ages of 11 and 12. Teenagers who missed out on this shot can get a catch-up dose from their doctor, as can adults who have never recieved the vaccine.
A top-up dose is recommended every 10 years, to boost protection against the other illnesses targeted by the combined vaccine.
Pregnant women are also usually offered the vaccine at the start of their third trimester. When pregnant women take the shot, protection is passed on to their fetus.
“This passes protection to their baby in the womb so that they are protected from birth in the first months of their life when they are most vulnerable and before they can receive their own vaccines,” UK public health leader Gayatri Amirthalingam previously said in a statement.
The CDC website has full information on whooping cough vaccines available in the U.S.
