In the US, whooping cough was more or less controlled until about a decade ago. Pediatricians had long used a vaccination called DPT. That stood for diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus. Before the development of the vaccine, whooping cough killed many infants in this country and around the world.
What Is Whooping Cough?
Pertussis is the medical term for whooping cough, a bacterial infection that attacks the lungs. Doctors first wrote about it with respect to the Paris epidemic of 1578, so it has been around a long time. That’s another characteristic of pertussis–the cough lasts a very long time. In the initial stage, patients and physicians are hard-pressed to distinguish between whooping cough and the common cold or any other respiratory infection.
The second phase has less fever but more cough, with a distinctive-sounding whoop following the repeated cough. Sometimes the cough is so severe that a person could break a rib. Babies may stop breathing during the coughing spasm.
Vaccinations Can Prevent Pertussis for a While:
We mentioned DPT, which saved lives but generated vaccine hesitancy because some children reacted badly to it. These days, whooping cough can be prevented by improved acellular vaccines called DTap (for young children) and TDap (for older children and adults). The protection does wear off, so teens and adults need boosters.
Whooping Cough on the Rise:
Starting just over a decade ago, some states began to see increases in the number of cases of pertussis. In 2010, California public health officials reported the worst outbreak in 50 years, with nearly 3,000 cases. That was not the only state experiencing a rise in whooping cough. Experts attributed the increase in part to decreased rates of vaccination, both in vulnerable infants and in older children and adults. Although the disease is much less serious in adults, they can spread it to babies who are not yet vaccinated. Vaccine complacency or hesitancy may have contributed to this bump.
Pandemic Problems with Vaccination:
During the pandemic, many young children did not get their usual well-child checkups when routine vaccinations would have been administered. That may help explain why there have been 14,569 cases so far this year, compared to just 2,844 this time last year. In fairness, last year’s tally was exceptionally low. Before the pandemic, the US averaged almost 10,000 cases a year. Vaccine hesitancy that started during the pandemic may be contributing to the resurgence of this infection.
