Between January and April of 2024, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reports that eight infants have passed away. This is three more than the number for the year thus far that was previously released.
Pregnant women are being advised by health experts to have the whooping cough vaccination.
Provisionally, the UKHSA received reports of 4,793 laboratory-confirmed cases in England between January and April 2024. Of those, 555 cases were recorded in January, 920 in February, 1,430 in March, and 1,888 cases in April.
According to the UKHSA, whooping cough first behaves like a cold, although additional symptoms may appear after a week or so.
Health officials said this month that five kids in England passed away following a diagnosis of the disease.
At that time, the University of Southampton’s Dr. Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health, remarked that the data “illustrates just how serious whooping cough is – it can and does kill babies.”
The decline in vaccines, he continued, “will be a key factor contributing to this rise in cases of whooping cough,” adding that the illness “is as infectious as measles, and more infectious than COVID-19”.
Whooping cough is sometimes referred to as the “100-day cough” due to how easily it spreads and how long it might take to recover.
