PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Pennsylvania has seen the most whooping cough cases in the nation – according to the CDC.
Pertussis, generally known as whooping cough, has infected more than 2,165 people in Pennsylvania as of late September.
UPMC’s infectious disease specialist says he’s seeing most cases come from high schools.
“Once there’s an outbreak, especially in a place like a school, with lots of people packed together, it spreads quickly,” said Dr. John Goldman.
He says this outbreak is partly due to bad luck and other reasons.
“The immunity from vaccinations is probably weening and we’ve also seen a lot of people who are very vaccine-hesitant. So there are lower rates of vaccination,” said Dr. Goldman.
Whooping cough symptoms, which normally last one to two weeks, include coughing fits, sneezing, and a low fever.
Kids or people with preexisting conditions who have the infection are more likely to end up in the hospital.
But for children, ages one to two years old, it causes the most deaths.
Dr. Goldman says people need to get their pertussis booster vaccines to slow down the spread of the infection.
“If your kids haven’t had their booster at age 10 or 11, they need to get them. There’s a lot in the schools. If you are a pregnant woman you need to get one with every pregnancy, later in the pregnancy,” said Dr. Goldman.
He also says antibiotics will shorten the illness and will prevent patients from being as contagious.
But if you’ve had whooping cough for more than a few weeks, the antibiotics won’t help.
Dr. Goldman says there’s hope to slow down the spread but it’s going to take some work.
“We need an awareness in the community so that when cases do occur, they’re recognized, we can appropriately isolate them, and you can also at times if you know someone has been exposed to pertussis and they aren’t sick you give them antibiotics before they get sick,” said Dr. Goldman.