United States: As the cases of whooping cough infection have been on the rise across the globe, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that it has been rising at great height in the US for years.
More about the news
The CDC data suggested that almost 250 pertussis cases have come to light in the first week of August, a rise from 215 weekly cases reported by the end of June.
Moreover, in Pennsylvania, around 1,500 cases have been reported this year, the highest in the country. At the same time, New York has stood second with 1,266 cases of infections.
Warnings by the officials
The CDC officials have been sending alerts for months about the comeback of the pre-pandemic trends of the illness amid the rising cases of infection, as CBS News reported.
As the experts note, Whooping cough, caused by the Bordetella pertussis bacteria, has shown a high jump after a shallow row of cases in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reasons for rising Whooping cough cases
As several diseases spread from one person to another via droplets in the air, the pertussis spread rate stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moreover, according to the CDC, “It’s likely mitigation measures used during the pandemic (e.g., masking, remote learning) lowered transmission of pertussis,” as CBS News reported.
However, as Tami Skoff, a CDC epidemiologist, states, “The increase in pertussis that we are observing continued right up through the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, after which we saw the dramatic decline in reported pertussis, which was similar to trends in other nationally notifiable diseases.”
Although there are several factors behind the steady rise of pertussis cases before the onset of the pandemic, Skoff said better diagnosis rate and infection reporting.
According to Skoff, “We believe one of the driving factors and one of the largest contributors is waning protection from acellular pertussis vaccines.”
“There are vaccines moving forward in the pipeline. Hopefully, in the next few years, we’ll have vaccines with a longer protection duration available,” she continued.