The Summary
- Whooping cough cases in the U.S. have reached the highest annual total in a decade.
- As of Dec. 14, 32,000 cases had been recorded, compared with more than 5,100 cases at the same time last year.
- Experts attribute the trend to a combination of factors, including a decrease in the vaccination rate.
With as many instances reported in the previous 12 weeks as in the entire year, the number of whooping cough cases in the United States has increased to its highest yearly total in ten years.
Approximately 14,500 cases had been reported nationwide since the year’s start as of mid-September. As of December 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that number had increased to over 32,000.
Compared to the same period in 2023, when over 5,100 instances had been reported, that is a six-fold increase. In 2022, the number was considerably lower, with about 3,000 cases.
A number of reasons, according to experts, are responsible for the high number of cases. For starters, a return to pre-pandemic trends was anticipated because whooping cough cases fell to significantly lower than normal levels during the Covid pandemic. However, they noted that this year’s total is much greater than 2019’s, most likely as a result of enhanced testing, declining vaccine protection, and lower vaccination rates.
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection that affects the upper respiratory tract and is often referred to as pertussis. Its spread usually peaks in the fall or winter and follows a cyclical rhythm.
After a week or two, patients frequently experience severe cough attacks that make breathing difficult. In the beginning, symptoms may resemble a regular cold, including fever, cough, and runny nose. The high-pitched whoop sound that some infected persons make when they breath after a coughing attack is referred to as whooping cough.
According to Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California, Davis Children’s Hospital, “they don’t have time in between those coughs to take a breath.” “Sometimes, if it s so severe, the kids end up being intubated or on a ventilator so that they can get oxygen.”
The risk of contracting whooping cough and experiencing severe consequences is higher in infants.
According to Blumberg, it is most severe in the youngest children, therefore those under a year old, and particularly those under six months, are at risk. This year, I have seen multiple patients in the intensive care unit, and I have personally seen one patient who passed away from pertussis.
He went on to say that he has observed a drop in vaccination rates and that the majority of whooping cough patients he has met had not received the vaccine.
According to Blumberg, there has been an increase in vaccination reluctance and, regrettably, increased cases of pertussis in children who are not vaccinated.
Beginning at two months of age, the CDC advises all Americans to get vaccinated against whooping cough, which helps prevent tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis. The so-called DTaP injection should be administered to infants at 2, 4, and 6 months of age. Booster shots should be administered between 12 and 15 months of age and again between 4 and 6 years of age.
Preteens aged 11 to 12 and adults every ten years should additionally receive a single dose of the Tdap vaccine, a distinct formulation of the vaccination.
Although they have decreased during the past five years or so, whooping cough immunization rates in the United States are still high. According to a CDC data released in September, the rate for infants born between 2020 and 2021 dropped to about 92.5%, whereas over 94% of children born between 2018 and 2019 had received at least three doses of the DTap vaccination by their second birthdays.
According to data released by the CDC in October, the percentage of kindergarteners who had received DTap and other state-mandated vaccines dropped from 95% in the 2019–20 school year to less than 93% in the 2023–24 school year.
According to the CDC, only around 29% of infants under one who were sent to the hospital last year for whooping cough had received at least three doses of the vaccination.
Over time, the vaccine’s effectiveness diminishes.
The majority of whooping cough patients that Santina Wheat, a professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, has seen have been vaccinated adults and tweens.
“I think we re probably seeing some of the impacts of the waning immunity,” she stated.
Wheat went on to say that the increased number of cases in the US is likely also a result of better diagnostic capabilities for whooping cough.
“We now have better testing options, so I’m able to run a panel that looks for a variety of different things, and pertussis is one of those,” she stated. “Numbers are up, but I also think some of it is just us recognizing it more frequently.”
Blumberg, however, advised parents to get their kids vaccinated or supplemented because whooping cough is a major concern.
He added, “We need clear and consistent messaging about vaccines.” “They’ll say, Pertussis is just a cough and kids get over it,” he said. They have been forgotten by many.
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