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Whooping cough outbreaks in Europe, Asia and parts of the U.S. should be a reminder to get vaccinated, experts say.
Since January, cases of whooping cough have risen sharply in the U.K. and Europe, the largest surge since 2012.
China logged more than 15,000 cases in January of this year, a 15-fold increase over the same time period last year. This month there have been small clusters of reported cases among high school students in the San Francisco Bay Area and several isolated cases in Hawaii. From October through earlier this year, New York City went through an outbreak, with more than 200 cases of mostly young children.
What’s happening?
Whooping cough, or Bordetella pertussis — the bacteria that causes the illness — is a very contagious respiratory illness spread through small respiratory droplets. Due to widespread vaccination, whooping cough is largely under control in the U.S., but breakthrough cases, which are usually mild, do happen in people who are vaccinated.
“Some U.S. health departments have informed us of local outbreaks, which we expect to see every year,” Jasmine Reed, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson, told NBC News. “So we are not seeing anything unusual.”
Cases of whooping cough in the U.S. in 2024 are still lower than normal pre-pandemic levels. The U.S. usually logs around 20,000 cases of whooping cough every year. There were nearly 50,000 cases during a 2012 outbreak, CDC data shows.
Annual cases dropped steeply during the first two years of the pandemic, to 6,100 in 2020 and just 2,100 in 2021. Masking and physical distancing disrupted the normal cycles of many respiratory illnesses, including common colds, RSV and flu.
“Where the pandemic may have interrupted the normal cycle of pertussis is people were not getting vaccinated on schedule because families weren’t seeing their physicians as frequently as we would like,” said Dr. Thomas Murray, a professor of pediatric infectious disease at the Yale School of Medicine.
Warning signs for babies
Whooping cough causes cough seizures, a series of coughs that make it hard for a person to take a breath.
“When it finally stops, you take a breath in and it sounds like a ‘whoop,’” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
In adults and kids, whooping cough can look very much like a cold, prompting a runny nose and cough. But in young babies, an infection can be much more serious.
Pertussis inflames young babies’ bronchial tubes, or airways, making it difficult to breathe. The most common complication of an infection is pneumonia, which can be fatal. According to the CDC, there were 307 reported deaths from pertussis from 2000 to 2017. Nearly 85% were infants younger than 2 months.
“The disease is typically called whooping cough, but the very young babies don’t necessarily cough, they stop breathing,” Murray said, adding that the first thing parents should be aware of is anyone who is sick trying to come visit their newborn. “For babies themselves, any fever over 100.4 degrees is something their pediatrician needs to know about.”
If a baby’s lips are turning blue or they appear not to be breathing how they normally would, that “is something to be worried about, especially if they have been around someone who is sick,” Murray said.
The CDC recommends babies start their DTaP vaccine series — which can prevent diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis — starting at 2 months old. The series includes four more shots, at 4 and 6 months, 15 to 18 months, and 4 to 6 years old.