Cases of whooping cough are on the rise in the US — and so are deaths, with most of 2025’s fatalities being children and infants.
According to CDC data, there were 27,871 reported cases of pertussis, better known as whooping cough, by the second to last week of December. While that’s less than the previous year — when cases skyrocketed to 41,922 — it’s higher than average pre-pandemic numbers.
The disease also caused 13 confirmed deaths, including three babies in Kentucky, two babies in Louisiana and one in Oregon.
Whooping cough isn’t just a bad cough like what you might get with a cold or the flu.
“The cough is so significant that we’ve seen kids have bleeds in their mouth, their nose, their lungs and their eyes,” Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, told The Post. “It’s a hacking, horrible cough where can’t stand afterward. You can’t get air in.”
It gets its name from the signature “whoop” sound an infected person makes as they gasp for air during coughing fits.
What’s more, it causes lung damage — which means even more complications.
“Because you had that damage to your lungs, you are more at risk for getting secondary bacterial hit and a real significant pneumonia,” she said.
There’s also the risk of pertussis encephalitis, a severe brain complication that mostly occurs in infants and children. It causes seizures, lethargy, irritability, confusion, vision loss, coma and even death.
About a third of babies under 1 year old who contract whooping cough need to be hospitalized.
“Pertussis is a horrible disease in infants,” Nachman said.
Those who survive can still suffer lifelong effects like chronic lung disease.
And all this, doctors say, is entirely preventable.
“Vaccines work and they prevent pertussis,” Nachman said. “Because it’s so preventable, we don’t ever need to see this. We know exactly how to prevent it.
“There’s no over-the-counter vitamin or herbal remedy that you could take that would prevent pertussis. Pertussis doesn’t care who you are or what over-the-counter meds you’re taking. It’s just a pathogen and it’s going to infect you.”
In the US, the DTaP vac (which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) is given in five shots at two months, four months, six months, 15 to 18 months, and four to six years.
Teens and adults are recommended to get Tdap boosters between 11 and 12 and again every 10 years. Pregnant women are also advised to get a shot between 27 and 36 weeks to protect their newborn.
But Nachman added that there’s been a “significant drop” in immunization — which is why cases have been going up.
Whooping cough cases were at their peak before 1950, when it annually infected hundreds of thousands of people a year. After the vaccine was widely adopted in the 1940s, cases began to drop — and by 1965, it was hitting under 10,000 a year.
Numbers stayed below 10,000 — getting as low as 1,010 in 1976 — until 2003, when they began rising again.
What does a whooping cough infection look like?
Pertussis starts out similarly to a cold, the flu or COVID. Those infected may have a runny nose, sneezing, low-grade fever and, of course, a cough.
“This cough, though, is gets worse instead of getting better,” Nachman explained. “It’s progressively worse over a few days, not slowly plateauing and getting better.”
As the infection worsens, patients can start having uncontrollable coughing fits, plus vomiting, extreme fatigue and broken blood vessels from the pressure of coughing.
How is whooping cough treated?
If you suspect you or your child have whooping cough, it’s important to get tested. Doctors can prescribe antibiotics, which can make you less contagious to those around you.
If you start medication within the first week or two, it can reduce the severity — and may shorten how long you’re sick. After that, it won’t help you feel better, but it will stop you from being contagious.
Does the whooping cough vaccine have thimerosal?
Thimerosal is a mercury-based compound that’s been used as a preservative in some multi-dose vaccines to stop dangerous bacteria and fungi from growing.
It’s frequently cited by vaccine skeptics as a reason to avoid or delay vaccines, because mercury is a known neurotoxin.
However, thimerosal has been completely removed — or reduced to just trace amounts — in all routine childhood vaccines in the US since 2001. Whooping cough vaccines (the DTaP given in childhood and the Tdap booster for tweens and adults) do not contain thimerosal.
“There are no preservatives, because it’s only meant for use one time,” Nachman explained, adding that there is also nothing live in the vaccine.
“The vaccine has been around for decades and decades, and millions and millions of children around the world have used this vaccine,” she said.
