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By: Naveen Athrappully
Reports of pertussis (whooping cough) have dramatically risen over the past year in the United States, with case numbers exceeding the pre-pandemic highs, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Reports of pertussis cases were lower than usual over the past few years, during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the United States is beginning to return to pre-pandemic patterns where more than 10,000 cases are typically reported each year,” the CDC said in an Oct. 17 report.
“Preliminary data show that more than five times as many cases have been reported as of week 41, reported on October 12, 2024, compared to the same time in 2023.”
“The number of reported cases this year is higher than what was seen at the same time in 2019, prior to the pandemic,” the CDC noted. The agency speculated that mitigation measures implemented during the pandemic, like remote learning and masking, were likely the reason for lower transmission levels of pertussis during this period.
Whooping cough was a major cause of childhood mortality in the United States last century. Over 200,000 cases were reported annually before a vaccine for the illness became available in the 1940s. Between the ‘40s and ’80s, the number of cases fell by more than 90 percent after widespread use of diphtheria, tetanus toxoid, and whole-cell pertussis (DTP) vaccine, the CDC noted.
However, yearly cases began to rise in the ‘80s, hitting a peak of over 48,000 incidents in 2012. Since then, annual case numbers remained elevated until the COVID-19 pandemic.
The agency attributes the rising whooping cough cases over the last decades to multiple factors, including improved recognition of the illness by health care providers, increased surveillance and reporting to public health departments, and waning immunity from acellular pertussis vaccines.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, homeopathic Dr. Jayne Donegan disagrees that pertussis declined in the country last century due to the introduction of vaccines.
She pointed out that 95–99 percent of people who died from pertussis stopped dying from the illness before the first vaccine was introduced, a transformation brought on by improved living conditions such as modern plumbing.
The old “whole cell” vaccine used against whooping cough is known to have resulted in brain damage in several children, she noted. The United States stopped using this vaccine in 1999.
The new “acellular” vaccines, which do not contain whole cells of the virus, are “not completely safe but it is much safer. But it doesn’t do a very good job,” Donegan said.
Vulnerable People, Antibiotics
According to the CDC, infants under the age of one year are at the “greatest risk for serious disease and death because their immune systems are still developing.” This age group “continues to have the highest reported rate of pertussis.”
Another group at high risk is people with pre-existing health conditions that can worsen by whooping cough, like those with immunocompromising conditions.
While the agency says vaccination is the best way to prevent pertussis, it notes that incidents are expected to increase in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals moving forward. Pertussis affects vaccinated individuals as immunity gained fades with time.
The illness is treated using antibiotics medications called PEP. “These are medicines given to someone who has been exposed to harmful bacteria to help prevent them from getting sick.
