According to data released on Thursday by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of whooping cough cases this year has surged to the fastest pace on record in almost ten years, coinciding with a rise in pertussis infections during the back-to-school season nationwide.
According to the CDC, 291 cases in all were reported during the week that ended on September 14. With 44 illnesses, New York has recorded the highest number of cases this week out of any state. At least 38 instances each have also been reported from Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
This week’s total of Bordatella pertussis infections reported to the CDC is the highest since 2015, when the nation was recovering from a whooping cough outbreak that had peaked the year before.
The pertussis bug, which causes whooping cough, usually causes symptoms one week after a person is first exposed to another infected person. The disease’s iconic “whooping” occurs when patients struggle to breathe after experiencing a sudden flare-up of coughing. Symptoms can linger for weeks to months.
With 14,569 cases recorded to the CDC so far this year, the number of illnesses at this time last year was more than four times lower.
The number of instances is also greater than the almost 10,000 cases that were recorded by this point in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic measures, which also resulted in a sharp decline in cases of pertussis and other airborne illnesses.
Improved whooping cough vaccinations are necessary.
Federal health officials have been warning for months that the United States was likely to see a resurgence of breakthrough infections in older children and adults, even though unvaccinated young children and newborns delivered by unvaccinated moms remain at the highest risk of infection and severe disease from whooping cough.
Since the 1970s, the United States and other high-income nations have adopted pertussis vaccinations, which cause fewer side effects but are less efficient in preventing illness and its transmission. As a result, the number of cases of pertussis has increased significantly over the past several decades.
According to officials, high school students have been the driving force behind several outbreaks of pertussis this year, including one of the biggest in the nation in Pennsylvania.
In a notice sent to state physicians this month, the government stated that “cases and outbreaks have continued throughout the summer even though most schools were closed,” advising them to brace for the prospect of a “continued increase” once classes reopened.
According to data that the state’s health department supplied with CBS News, youths between the ages of 15 and 19 have accounted for 40% of cases in New York this year outside of New York City.
“There is no evidence that points to a particular cluster, place, or event. A representative for the New York State Department of Health stated, “Cases have been identified among children and adolescents in various settings and throughout the state.”
People as elderly as 86 have been diagnosed with cases in Oklahoma, which has experienced one of the sharpest rises in cases of any state in recent weeks. According to the health department, the cases’ median age is nine years old.
The Oklahoma State Department of Health’s Erica Rankin-Riley told CBS News that, “since Jan. 1, 2024, there have been 162 cases of whooping cough in Oklahoma, which is the highest number of cases since 2017 when 207 cases were reported.”
Discussions about new trials
The reappearance coincides with the Food and Drug Administration’s consideration of the possibility of human challenge trials, which involve purposefully infecting vaccinated volunteers with the bacteria in order to speed up the creation of more potent vaccines to ward against the infection.
Friday’s meeting of the FDA’s advisory group is slated to address the trials and perhaps pave the way for the approval of “new pertussis vaccines for booster vaccination of adults.”
The Tdap vaccination, which contains antigens intended to protect against pertussis, is one of the several pertussis vaccines that the CDC currently advises adults and children to get every ten years.
A pertussis booster shot has been administered to about 39% of individuals in the last ten years, according to CDC survey data from 2022.
The FDA stated that other variables, such as alterations in circulating pertussis strains and the “rapid waning” of immunity, may also be contributing to the increased number of cases.
According to FDA briefing documents released prior to the meeting, the current generation of “acellular pertussis” vaccinations is still thought to “provide a significant public health benefit by preventing disease.”
“Despite the resurgence of pertussis, current rates of disease are very low relative to the rates reported during the pre-vaccine era,” said authorities from the department.
