Nurses Fatima Guillen, left, and Fran Wendt, right, give Kimberly Magdeleno, 4, a whooping cough booster shot, as she is held by her mother, Claudia Solorio, at a health clinic in Tacoma, Wash. A government study offers a new theory on why the whooping cough vaccine doesn't seem to prevent outbreaks that well. In research involving baboons, researchers found that while the vaccine may keep people from getting sick, it fails to prevent the germ from spreading, said one of the researchers, Tod Merkel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. AP file

Pennsylvania has reported 2,008 cases of whooping cough in 2024, up 935% from last year, a September report indicated.

The Keystone State seems to be running away with the No. 1 spot for the year — the second closest case count trails by nearly 300 in New York — but a local doctor hopes to see the number of Pennsylvania cases stunted in the future.

“I think the big reason we’re seeing increased cases is a drop in immunization,” Dr. Michael Petrosky, a pediatrician with Allegheny Health Network said in an interview late last week. “I think a lot of it happened during the COVID years.

“People weren’t necessarily going out, getting their regular checkups, going to the doctor, and getting the vaccines.”

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is a infectious disease that affects the respiratory system. The bacteria that causes pertussis can be spread from person to person through the air when an infected person coughs.

In its early stages, whooping cough is easy to mistake for the common cold due to its similar set of symptoms, which can lead sufferers to not suspect that they have it until its later stages.

“You get a little bit of runny nose, congestion, some slight cough,” Petrosky said. “But usually, after a couple of weeks, it progresses to where you actually have these coughing fits, where you can cough 10 to 12 minutes at a time.

“When it finally calms down, you take that big inhale. It gives you that ‘whoop’ sound, and that's where the name came from.”

There has been a surge of whooping cough nationwide over the past year, according to results released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month.

So far in 2024, the CDC has tallied 14,569 cases of whooping cough nationwide up to Sept. 14, up from the 3,475 cases at the same point last year. In 2023, only 194 cases of whooping cough were reported in Pennsylvania.

Multiple vaccines for whooping cough — known as DTaP and Tdap — have been available to the public for decades. These also vaccinate against two other preventable diseases, tetanus and diphtheria. The two vaccines differ slightly in the proportion of components used to fight each disease.

“There’s an effective vaccine out there, but it’s not a lifelong vaccine. You have to get boosters every so often,” Petrosky said. “If you’re not staying up to date on your vaccines, then you have a higher risk of getting whooping cough, and then subsequently passing it onto others.”

The CDC recommends children 7 years and younger receive the DTaP vaccination, in a series of five doses administered from 2 months old to 4 through 6 years old.

The CDC also recommends pregnant women receive the Tdap vaccine during the early phase of their pregnancy, both for themselves and for the child.

“(It’s) to protect them, but also to pass on some of the protection to their baby through the antibodies that cross the placenta,” Petrosky said.

The vaccine is available at hospitals, medical clinics, department stores, and pharmacies where vaccines are offered.