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In the winter of 2023, health experts across the European continent started noticing something weird. Cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, were rising. It was not just happening in Europe.

US health officials also began reporting a spike in whooping cough cases. And in the UK, case numbers had risen to their highest point in two decades. By March 2024, cases had spiked higher in Europe than in the past decade (the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) did not release figures earlier than 2011).



Some 32,000 cases were reported across Europe between January and March 2024. According to the ECDC, the yearly average of pertussis cases in Europe is around 38,000. If the trend continues, whooping cough cases could increase some tenfold in 2024 compared to a typical year.

According to figures outlined in the ECDC’s latest report on the situation, the majority of European cases occurred in infants—the population for which whooping cough can turn deadly. The second highest group of reported cases occurred in 10-14-year-olds. These figures need to be interpreted with caution, Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia in the UK, told DW.

Cases could be higher than reported, he said. Because babies are at such high risk when it comes to whooping cough, they are far more likely than other groups of the population to receive a diagnosis. So many older members of the population might also have contracted whooping cough that is.

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