Whooping cough infections are returning to pre-pandemic levels with more than 10,800 cases recorded so far this year, more than three times as many as last year.
Mary Kekatos and Youri Benadjaoudare more than three times higher this year than they were at the same time last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
"During the pandemic itself, we really had a low point in transmission of pertussis, and that was just because of all of the social distancing and isolation," Dr. Mike Patrick, an emergency medicine physician at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told ABC News. "If kids aren't around each other, and also around adults, then they're not able to pick up the disease, since it's an infectious disease and transmitted from one person to another.
"I honestly think it was a little surprising that it took this long, recognizing we lifted measures close to two years ago," she told ABC News. "I think many folks remember the increase in RSV cases that we saw back in 2022, so this has lagged behind some other respiratory infections, but definitely now has resurfaced and looks very typical to 2019."caused by a type of bacteria called Bordetella pertussis.
Whooping cough is spread from person-to-person through coughing and sneezing. Infected people can be contagious for weeks without knowing they have whooping cough. "In the younger kids, and especially in infants, they can have apnea, so they stop breathing. They can be hospitalized in the intensive care unit, and unfortunately, children can and have died from pertussis," Dr. Robert Frenck, a professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in Ohio, told ABC News. "So, these are not innocuous infections. They can be very serious, and they can be deadly.
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