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Whooping cough cases surging in suburbs

The worst of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be behind us, but the end of lockdown has left another illness on the rise: pertussis or whooping cough.

Health officials say our area is seeing a sharp increase in cases that follows a large drop experienced during the pandemic.

More than 600 people were diagnosed with the ailment in Cook County in 2024, more than doubling the 280 cases recorded in 2023 and dwarfing the mere 15 cases in 2022 in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic lockdown.

Other suburbs are reporting similar experiences, including a fivefold increase in DuPage County — with 31 cases in 2023 and more than 160 last year — and a surge in Lake County from 133 cases in 2023 to 571 last year. Kane County saw just 16 cases of whooping cough in 2023 but 116 in 2024.

Statewide, the numbers for all of 2024 are still being processed, but Illinois has a provisional count of 2,410 cases, according to Illinois Department of Public Health spokesman Michael Claffey.

Most of the whooping cough cases in 2024 came during the second half of the year, health officials said.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious bacterial respiratory infection that for many can cause mild cold symptoms like a runny nose, low-grade fever and coughing. It can linger for up to three weeks and often causes a dry cough with a high-pitched “whoop” sound that can be followed by vomiting, health officials said.

The lockdown conditions that began in 2020 played a key role in keeping the numbers low early in the decade.

“People were indoors, they were masking, they were not in contact with other people. We have gone back to that cyclical pattern that we saw before COVID,” said Dr. Rachel Rubin, chief medical officer at the Cook County Department of Public Health. “So that's one of the reasons we are seeing such an increase.”

Additionally, Claffey said improved recognition of the illness by health professionals, greater access to and use of laboratory diagnostics and better reporting to health departments may have been contributing factors to the dramatic increases.

The best treatment for the illness is antibiotics, and those who contract the illness should seek medical attention.

Hospitals have not been backed up with pertussis cases, but some have seen an increase in children with the illness, according to the health departments.

“We've seen a greater number of cases this past six months to a year than we have in many years before,” said Dr. Michael TeKippe at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn. “Our caseload was really higher in the summer and early fall.”

Health department officials said numbers have been slowly dwindling in recent months, but risk of contracting the illness still is high.

IDPH sent three health alerts about the recent rise in pertussis to local health departments and providers to urge them to be vigilant and report cases within 24 hours of diagnosis. These alerts also reminded schools to adhere to vaccination requirements.

Vaccinations are the best line of defense against whooping cough, the experts said.

Children, especially infants under 6 months, are most susceptible to the illness. While the vaccination for pertussis is part of the routine regimen of childhood vaccines, it is recommended that adults receive a Tdap shot every 10 years, Rubin said.

Pertussis-Parent-Fact-Sheet.pdf
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