Whooping cough outbreak in the US is the worst in a decade: NPR

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted some people’s ability to get vaccinations for other infectious diseases, including whooping cough

image broker/Alamy

hide caption

change caption

image broker/Alamy

Whooping cough is spreading nationally at the highest level since 2014. There are more than 16,000 cases this year – more than four times as many compared to the same time last year – and two confirmed deaths. And experts are concerned the outbreak could worsen in the fall and winter months.

“More children are now returning to school, (leading to) greater exposure,” said Dr. Eric Chow, chief of epidemiology and immunization at the Seattle and King County Public Health Department. “We’re getting into the kind of winter season where people are spending more time indoors with other people.”

The disease is most dangerous for babies: 1 in 3 will develop the disease require hospitalization.

Whooping cough cases are currently especially high on the West Coast.

King County, where Seattle is located, has seen more this year than any year since 2015 — “and the year isn’t even over yet,” Chow said. He said the province is still seeing new cases of whooping cough every week.

Why the big outbreak now?

Experts say there are a number of possible explanations for the scale of the current outbreak.

Doctors test for whooping cough more often, so they identify more cases.

It is possible that the bacteria that cause the disease have mutated.

People have also fallen behind on their vaccines during the pandemic, but they have not caught up.

“One of the challenges we have with (the vaccine that protects against whooping cough) is that it is a series of five doses over the course of the first six years of a child’s life, so it does require regular visits to primary care . ” said Chow.

And, Chow said, not everyone can go to the doctor regularly.

But access is not the only problem.

“There are still many vaccine hesitants and anti-vaxers who don’t want to vaccinate their children,” says Dr. Tina Tan, an infectious disease pediatrician at Northwestern University and president-elect of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

For the first few weeks, whooping cough resembles a mild cold, but then the coughing fits begin.

Babies who get it “will yelp when they cough,” Tan said. “And they can cough, cough, cough, cough, cough and then they don’t seem to be breathing at all.”

Tan said those pauses in breathing are life-threatening and are a sign that it is time to go to the hospital.

Whooping cough can also lead to pneumonia and other complications.

But babies can’t get their first dose of the vaccine that protects against whooping cough, also called pertussis, until they are 2 months old.

“That is why it is important that pregnant women get the whooping cough vaccine when they are pregnant,” Tan said, “so that you can protect your baby for the first two months of life until he is old enough to be vaccinated himself.”

Even before the pandemic, only about half of pregnant women received the whooping cough vaccine. Now that number is even lower.

In King County, of the 12 babies who had whooping cough this year, none of their mothers received the shot during pregnancy.

Vaccine fears and confidence

Dr. Chow of Public Health-Seattle & King County said this is a missed opportunity.

“Sometimes you need a kind of sit-down conversation with the patient, who may be a little more hesitant or may have been exposed to misinformation,” he said, “so it just takes more time to build trust and rapport.”

Additionally, not all OB/GYNs offer the vaccine in their offices, and some people don’t have the bandwidth to go to a pharmacy for a shot.

At a playground in Seattle’s White Center neighborhood, Kay said she has two children, ages 12 and 4, and has always been hesitant about vaccines.

Kay declined to give her last name because she is concerned about the release of personal medical information.

“With COVID, it became even scarier because everyone came out and said, ‘The COVID shot is actually not good for you,’” Kay said. “So I thought, ‘Maybe the other vaccines are bad too.’ And then I went down the rabbit hole of looking for children who had supposedly received vaccinations and died.”

Experts say vaccines are very safe and can prevent diseases that once killed or harmed many babies, children and adults.

Kay ended up giving her four-year-old daughter the shots needed for daycare, but nothing else.

“It’s hard for me to get childcare, and it’s just easier for me to say, ‘Okay, just give me what she needs, just to get her to school,’” Kay said.

So her daughter received the required whooping cough vaccines – but no COVID injections, which are not mandatory.

Aaron Sittinghorse was at the same playground with his three-year-old daughter. He said the pandemic had the opposite effect on his thoughts on vaccines.

“It opened my eyes to how important they are,” he said, “and so I now believe in vaccines. It is important, even if it is not for yourself, but for everyone around you.”

Sittinghorse said he saw on the news that there is currently an outbreak of whooping cough, and that worries him a little — but not too much, because he and his family are up to date on their vaccines.