The incidence of whooping cough is increasing in Ukraine

515 cases were recorded in January and February 2024, although there were only 27 at the same time last year, according to the Ministry of Health.

95.9% of all patients are children, mostly of preschool or early preschool age.

The rise of whooping cough was noticed as early as 2023. The reason is many unvaccinated children, the ministry explains.

What should you know about this dangerous disease?

Symptoms of whooping cough

Whooping cough (sometimes called whooping cough in Ukraine) is a bacterial infectious disease that begins as SARS, but after 5-8 days, paroxysmal spasmodic cough appears, up to reddening of the face, lacrimation, with a characteristic whistling.

Cough attacks occur more often at night and may be accompanied by fever, runny nose, and other symptoms of ARVI.

Whooping cough is "highly contagious" and especially dangerous for babies, says the Ministry of Health. In babies, it can cause apnea - a temporary stoppage of breathing. They may not even cough, but there is a "stopping of breathing for a short time, which may be evidenced by a blue face," the ministry says.

"In addition, in newborns and infants, the disease can be severe, there is a high risk of complications and death," the ministry added.

"It is very dangerous for young children, babies and people under one year old. Children die from whooping cough," pediatrician Olena Lutska told BBC Ukraine.

WHO writes that every year 24.1 million cases of whooping cough are recorded in the world, of which about 160,000 children under the age of 5 die.

Last summer, a three-month-old baby died of whooping cough in the Rivne region - the child did not have the first vaccination against this disease, which is given at two months of age, the regional control and prevention center reported. Another baby died in Volyn.

Older children and adults usually recover, but the disease exhausts and greatly weakens the body, the Ministry of Health says.

Patients begin to recover after 4-8 weeks - they cough less often, attacks weaken.

Sometimes whooping cough is also called the "90-day disease" because the cough can last three months. And even up to six months, say the Ministry of Health.

How to protect yourself from whooping cough

Whooping cough is easily spread by airborne droplets when coughing or sneezing.

To protect yourself, you need to get vaccinated, there is no other way.

All children should receive four pertussis vaccinations – at ages 2, 4, 6 and 18 months, the Ministry of Health says. "If for some reason the vaccination was missed, catch up as soon as possible."

"Not only parents, but also doctors should remember this. It is necessary to recommend parents to repeat vaccinations, but we have a big problem with this, because parents either refuse, or they are not recommended too much," says pediatrician Lidia Babich.

Whooping cough is not the case when, after getting sick, you can get immunity, as after chickenpox, says the doctor.

WHO also recommends repeating the vaccination up to 6 years of age, and making a second one at 11-12, 19 years or later, repeating the dose every 10 years in adulthood.

Pregnant women - regardless of whether they have been vaccinated or not - between 16 and 32 weeks of pregnancy should also be vaccinated against whooping cough.

"This is necessary to protect the child from whooping cough in the first months of his life before he receives the vaccine," the ministry explains.

Only the mother's vaccine can protect the baby from respiratory arrest, which can occur due to whooping cough at the age of 2 months, that is, the first vaccination, says doctor Babich.

The nature of pertussis is such, explains pediatrician Olena Lutska, that its incidence increases every 4-5 years. It does not depend on what time of year it is outside - spring, summer or winter, this disease has no seasonality.

Much depends on the frequency of contacts. Now many kindergartens and schools do not work online anymore, so children communicate a lot with each other.

Many unvaccinated children are the main reason for the increase in morbidity.

"With the start of the war and the displacement of the population, many could miss scheduled vaccinations," says doctor Olena Lutska.

But it is not only about war.

The country could never boast of a high level of vaccination, pediatrician Lidia Babich told BBC Ukraine, and when there were some disasters, the vaccination rate dropped even more.

In 2018, only 53.2% of children under one year were vaccinated against whooping cough, according to statistics from the Center for Public Health.

Moreover, the fewest vaccinated children were in Rivne region - this is one of the regions with the largest number of large families in Ukraine.

Recently, Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko said that the share of children vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (this is a three-in-one vaccine) has decreased by 22% in the country, compared to the figures before the full-scale invasion.

Although such basic vaccines as against whooping cough are not lacking in Ukraine.

According to Babich, Ukrainians need to overcome their fear of vaccines, and the Ministry of Health and pediatricians need to be more informed.

"Children should be protected from infections, not from vaccines, the vaccine does not pose any threat to the child. There is a fever or pain from an injection, but it is definitely not as scary as stopping breathing from infections," says the pediatrician.

Whooping cough and the world

Every year, millions of people get sick with whooping cough, tens of thousands of children around the world die from it.

But whooping cough, like scarlet fever, doctors explained to BBC Ukraine, gathers momentum every 4-5 years. Although in those countries where people are in the habit of getting vaccinated regularly, whooping cough will not appear.

The great return of whooping cough is now being felt on different continents. Deaths have been recorded in China, the Philippines, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands, and there are outbreaks in the United States and Great Britain.

In neighboring Poland, there were 326 cases of whooping cough in January and February 2024, compared to 156 in the same period last year.

A dangerous situation arose in the Czech Republic. Since the beginning of 2024, 6,397 cases of whooping cough have been recorded there. This is the most in the last 60 years. From 1984 to 2004, no one fell ill with whooping cough in the Czech Republic, and only in the last week of 2024, 1,100 cases were recorded.

According to the Czech Ministry of Health, 96% of infants are vaccinated in the country. But only 90% of older children receive a repeat dose against whooping cough.

According to the Minister of Health of the Czech Republic, Vlastimil Valek, this can explain why the incidence of whooping cough is observed mainly among teenagers. Currently, a third of whooping cough patients in the Czech Republic are people aged 15 to 19.

Although teenagers are mildly ill, they can infect their younger siblings, as well as infants and elderly family members who are more susceptible to the disease.

Two elderly people in the Czech Republic have already died from whooping cough.

In Czech social networks, you can find posts that Ukrainian refugees are allegedly responsible for the increase in whooping cough. About 300,000 of them ended up in the Czech Republic because of the war.

But the State Health Institute of the Czech Republic (SZÚ) denied these rumors. They reported that out of a thousand infected people, only 10 people are refugees from Ukraine, and in 16 cases it is an "imported" infection from countries such as Austria, Italy, or the UAE.

The Minister of Health of the Czech Republic also rejected the connection.

"Accusing Ukrainians of increasing the incidence of whooping cough is an evergreen phenomenon of the Czech disinformation scene. The increase in the incidence of whooping cough is rather related to the fact that interest in vaccination is falling in our country," wrote Vlastimil Valek on Twitter.

"We all know when the conflict in Ukraine began. If the disease had a direct connection with Ukrainian refugees, it would have appeared much earlier in the Czech Republic."