A large outbreak of pertussis (more commonly known as whooping cough) has been ongoing in the UK since the beginning of 2024. There have been so far this year. Sadly, five infant deaths due to whooping cough have been confirmed, with that a sixth infant may have died in the last week of the bacterial infection.
This is a stark reminder that whooping cough is a very nasty infection. While the symptoms are in healthy older children and adults, it can be lethal for babies. Globally, there are an estimated of whooping cough each year and around 160,000 deaths.
Whooping cough is caused by a bacteria called . Pertussis often begins like most other respiratory infections, with typical symptoms including a runny nose and a . The distinctive "whoop" cough may only appear after a week or so of illness – though it does not occur in all cases.
As such, confirming cases of whooping cough may require a laboratory test. Whooping cough is very infectious. On average, a single case of pertussis can transmit infection on to .
This infection rate is similar to and higher than the . The reason whooping cough is so infectious is in part due to pertussis having a very long of up to five weeks – where infected people can pass the bacteria on to others. Prompt treatment can greatly transmission – antibiotics shown to reduce contagiousness just five days after starting treatment.
But prior to treatment, there are plenty of opportunities for transmission to occur and for an outbreak to be mainta.
