Whooping cough cases spread in US, CDC says

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there has been an uptick in cases of whooping cough across the country.

In 2025, the agency has already counted 8,077 cases, compared to 3,847 cases at the same time last year.

If the trend continues, 2025 is on track to have the highest number of cases since 1948, when the vaccine was introduced, NBC News reported.

In 2024, there were a total of more than 35,000 cases, with 10 deaths; six of the deaths were children under a year old, CNN reported.

Last year, the number of cases was the highest they had been in a decade, The Washington Post reported.

Whooping cough is also known as pertussis and is spread from person to person through the air when someone coughs or sneezes, and someone else breathes in the bacteria.

The bacteria can spread from the time someone shows symptoms and for about two weeks after the start of coughing.

Some people may not know they have the illness because their symptoms are mild.

Children under the age of one, along with people with pre-existing health conditions, can develop a severe infection.

“For infants, it’s really rather terrifying,” Dr. John Schieffelin, associate professor of pediatrics at Tulane University, told CNN. “They’re just coughing so much, they can’t eat, they can’t drink, and they often get a pneumonia, which means we have to put them on a ventilator. … They just never stop coughing.”

Two infants have died from pertussis in Louisiana in the past six months. It is the first time that whooping cough has killed someone since 2018, CNN reported. A child died of pertussis and the flu in January in South Dakota, while an adult died in Idaho of pertussis in February, NBC News reported.

In Michigan, there have been 497 cases this year. There were only 110 cases in 2023, but last year, it ballooned by more than 1,800%, with 2,081 reported cases in 2024, NBC News reported.

Early symptoms of whooping cough include:

• Runny or stuffy nose
• Low-grade fever
• Mild, occasional cough

As the illness advances, the symptoms can worsen about two weeks after the first symptoms appear. Coughing fits called paroxysms can last one to six weeks, but up to 10 weeks. The fits can get worse and more frequent.

The coughing spells can make people:

• Make a high-pitched whoop sound when inhaling after coughing
• Vomit during or after a coughing fit
• Feel tired after a coughing fit
• Have trouble sleeping at night
• Struggle to breathe
• Break a rib

The CDC said that the best way to prevent developing whooping cough is to have good hygiene and be vaccinated either with the DTaP or Tdap vaccine.

Treatment of whooping cough is with antibiotics, and if symptoms are serious, hospitalization may be needed.

The CDC said that the increase in cases coincides with the decline in children being vaccinated, which has been going down since the coronavirus pandemic.

The agency’s data shows that in 2023 to 2024, the vaccination rate among kindergarteners fell to 92.3% from 94.9% in 2020-2021.

The number of vaccine exemptions grew by 37%, The Washington Post reported.

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