{"id":217722,"date":"2024-08-27T06:39:42","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T10:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=217722"},"modified":"2024-10-17T09:07:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T13:07:47","slug":"why-whooping-cough-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/08\/why-whooping-cough-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Whooping Cough Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pertussis, or whooping cough, is on the rise as we head into the new school year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s compared to the last few years, when incidence was low compared to the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, but, as Dr. Timothy Lishnak<\/a>, assistant professor of family medicine in the UConn School Medicine points out, it\u2019s now approaching levels seen pre-pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Timothy Lishnak is an assistant professor of family medicine in the UConn School of Medicine. (Janine Gelineau\/UConn Health photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s considered an endemic infection, meaning we\u2019ve been coexisting with it for quite some time, as opposed to COVID, which was an epidemic virus, new on the scene,\u201d Lishnak says. \u201cAnd as we start to get people back into contained areas and getting back into school and other facets of life, you see this spread because it\u2019s spread by breathing out and breathing in the bacteria. So that\u2019s one of the mechanisms that it starts to increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though highly contagious, most people with mature immune systems will recover fully in a matter of weeks, and often sooner, particularly if they\u2019re current with their recommended vaccinations. The most vulnerable to serious illness from pertussis are the very young, who haven\u2019t been vaccinated or developed their own immunity yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the babies that don\u2019t have at least some immunity, and so what we\u2019ve been doing is targeting moms during pregnancy,\u201d Lishnak says. \u201cFor many years now, it\u2019s been a recommendation that moms, as they get into the later part of their pregnancy, their third trimester, they receive a booster vaccine. That is more intended to protect their babies at birth, to give them some protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says about one in three newborns who catch pertussis end up hospitalized.<\/p>\n

The Centers\u2019 for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on childhood immunizations<\/a> include doses of DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) at 2, 4, and 6 months, with additional boosters at 15 to 18 months and 4 to 6 years.<\/p>\n

An overall downward trend in vaccination compliance in recent years is a likely contributing factor to whooping cough\u2019s comeback, as is the case with the uptick in measles this past year<\/a> relative to the trends of the last several decades.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

The concept of vaccines is, it\u2019s not 100%, it doesn\u2019t prevent you from getting the illness. The goal is to try to minimize the severity and the complications. — Dr. Timothy Lishnak<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Because it generally starts with symptoms like runny nose, sore throat, congestion, or fever, it can take up to a week for pertussis to distinguish itself from the common cold or other ailments such as flu, COVID-19, RSV, bronchitis, sinus infection, or hay fever.<\/p>\n

People are contagious from the start of symptoms and for approximately two weeks after the start of coughing. The cough can feature severe coughing fits and the sudden and audible inhaling that gives \u201cwhooping cough\u201d its name.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that cough that can linger for weeks and weeks and weeks, and this is one area where treatment can be helpful,\u201d Lishnak says. \u201cIf we recognize this as whooping cough, we treat it. What we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re reducing the potential severity and the potential to spread the disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pertussis is a bacterial infection, treatable with antibiotics. Physicians can test for it, and when the suspicion is strong enough, they often start the patient on antibiotics without waiting for lab results. This can reduce the risks of severe illness, complications, and spread of the illness.<\/p>\n

When symptoms appear, the standard recommendations apply: stay home, wash hands frequently, avoid close contact with others, hydrate, rest, and use over-the-counter remedies like acetaminophen to reduce fevers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found over the years that the most useful tool in my armamentarium, besides rest and fluids, is nasal saline, which helps with a lot of things, including to help clear out a lot of congestion, which then helps to reduce the cough as well,\u201d Lishnak says.<\/p>\n

Children should stay out of school until they are fever-free without the aid of medication for at least 24 hours and their other symptoms start to improve, he advises. Wearing a mask until symptoms are entirely gone will help prevent the spread of what\u2019s left of their illness to their classmates and teachers.<\/p>\n

The time to call the doctor is when fever in children persists for more than three days. If children have trouble breathing or speaking, that\u2019s an urgent situation.<\/p>\n

With the exception of pertussis in infants, Lishnak says, among the highly contagious respiratory illnesses, pertussis is still on the relatively low end of the spectrum of worry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing the uptick right now, and it gets a lot of publicity, but really, we still haven\u2019t gotten to where we were before the pandemic, and we probably weren\u2019t talking about it at that point, even though the levels overall were higher,\u201d he says. \u201cWe do know a lot of people will get pertussis and won\u2019t really present with many symptoms at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s another example of prevention, with the best weapon in the fight against pertussis being one that\u2019s deployed well before the battle even starts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I am likely to have a conversation with patients about pertussis, it\u2019s usually when talking about the vaccine and why the vaccine is recommended, and we kind of start it by talking about vaccine hesitancy and embracing vaccines, particularly as a means to protect the most vulnerable, newborns,\u201d Lishnak says. \u201cThe concept of vaccines is, it\u2019s not 100%, it doesn\u2019t prevent you from getting the illness. The goal is to try to minimize the severity and the complications. It\u2019s to prevent hospitalizations. It\u2019s to prevent death.\u201d<\/p>\n

UConn Health has family medicine practices in Canton, Storrs, and Willimantic.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Resurgence of pertussis is relative, says Dr. Timothy Lishnak from UConn Health\u2019s family medicine faculty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":217723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,2460,2231,1868,2235,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-217722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-faculty","category-health-well-being","category-meds","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-13 06:00:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217722"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220133,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217722\/revisions\/220133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/217723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217722"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=217722"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=217722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}