{"id":29146,"date":"2025-06-06T09:01:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29146"},"modified":"2025-06-06T09:27:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:27:43","slug":"whooping-cough-is-surging-do-you-need-another-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29146","title":{"rendered":"Whooping Cough Is Surging. Do You Need Another Shot?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pertussis infections have surged in recent months, and some people may need an additional shot for protection.<\/p>\n

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After a brief lull during the pandemic, whooping cough has bounced back, raising alarm among public health officials<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There have been more than 10,000 whooping cough cases in the United States so far this year, an unusually high number even by prepandemic standards, said Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University who has studied whooping cough, also called pertussis, for decades. A branch of the World Health Organization recently called on countries with high levels of spread, including the U.S., to bolster surveillance of the illness and increase vaccination efforts.<\/p>\n

Dr. Edwards said the surge was most likely a combination of falling childhood vaccination rates<\/a> and a lack of exposure to the disease during the pandemic. That exposure \u201creminds\u201d the immune system how to recognize and defend against the bacteria.<\/p>\n

While less deadly than other vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and polio, whooping cough \u2014 sometimes called the 100-day cough \u2014 is not a mild illness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The respiratory illness is known for causing bouts of coughing so intense that they can lead to vomiting or even broken ribs. About a third of babies who get whooping cough need treatment at a hospital. Last year, 10 people died<\/a> from the infection, and most of them were younger than a year old.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese cough seizures can be so profound that you can lose consciousness and fall,\u201d said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.<\/p>\n

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Pertussis infections have surged in recent months, and some people may need an additional shot for protection.After a brief lull during the pandemic, whooping cough has bounced back, raising alarm among public health officials.There have been more than 10,000 whooping cough cases in the United States so far this year, an unusually high number even by prepandemic standards, said Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University who has studied whooping cough, also called pertussis, for decades. A branch of the World Health Organization recently called on countries with high levels of spread, including the U.S., to bolster surveillance of the illness and increase vaccination efforts.Dr. Edwards said the surge was most likely a combination of falling childhood vaccination rates and a lack of exposure to the disease during the pandemic. That exposure \u201creminds\u201d the immune system how to recognize and defend against the bacteria.While less deadly than other vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and polio, whooping cough \u2014 sometimes called the 100-day cough \u2014 is not a mild illness.The respiratory illness is known for causing bouts of coughing so intense that they can lead to vomiting or even broken ribs. About a third of babies who get whooping cough need treatment at a hospital. Last year, 10 people died from the infection, and most of them were younger than a year old.\u201cThese cough seizures can be so profound that you can lose consciousness and fall,\u201d said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29148,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29149,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29146\/revisions\/29149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}