Pertussis incidence is increasing in Ukraine

515 cases were recorded in January and February 2024, although last year at the same time there were only 27, reports .

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

The rise in whooping cough was noticed back in 2023. The reason is many unvaccinated children, the ministry explains.

What is worth knowing about this dangerous disease?

Symptoms of whooping cough

Whooping cough (sometimes called pertussis in Ukraine) is a bacterial infectious disease that begins as a common cold, but after 5-8 days, a paroxysmal spasmodic cough appears, leading to facial redness, tearing, and a characteristic wheezing sound.

Cough attacks more often occur at night and may be accompanied by fever, runny nose, and other signs of acute respiratory viral infections.

Whooping cough is “highly contagious” and especially dangerous for infants, the Ministry of Health says. In infants, it can cause apnea, a temporary cessation of breathing. They may not even cough, but there is “a brief cessation of breathing, which may be indicated by a bluish face,” the ministry says.

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

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

The WHO writes that every year 24.1 million cases of whooping cough are recorded worldwide, 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, the regional center for control and prevention reported. Another baby died in Volyn.

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

Patients begin to recover after 4-8 weeks – they cough less often, and the attacks become less severe.

Whooping cough is sometimes called the “90-day disease,” because the cough can last three months. And even up to six months, according to the Ministry of Health.

How to protect yourself from whooping cough

Whooping cough is easily transmitted through airborne droplets during coughing or sneezing.

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

All children should receive four shots of whooping cough — at ages 2, 4, 6, and 18 months, the Ministry of Health says. “If for some reason you missed a shot, catch up as soon as possible.”.

"Not only parents, but also doctors should remember this. We need to recommend that parents repeat vaccinations, but we have a big problem with this, because parents either refuse or are not recommended to them," says pediatrician Lidia Babich.

Whooping cough is not a case where, having been sick, you can gain immunity, like after chickenpox, says the doctor.

WHO also recommends repeating the vaccination by age 6, and revaccinating at 11-12, 19 years or later, with a repeat dose every 10 years into adulthood.

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

“This is necessary to protect the child from whooping cough in the first months of its life before it 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 before the age of 2 months, that is, the first vaccination, says Dr. Babich.

The nature of whooping cough, explains pediatrician Olena Lutska, is such 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.

A lot depends on the frequency of contact. Nowadays, many kindergartens and schools no longer operate online, so children communicate with each other a lot.

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

“With the beginning of the war and the displacement of the population, many could have missed the scheduled vaccination,” says doctor Olena Lutska.

But it's not just about war.

The country has never been able to boast a high level of vaccination, pediatrician Lidiya Babich tells BBC Ukraine, and when disasters occur, vaccination rates drop even more.

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

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

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

Although there is no shortage of basic vaccines such as pertussis in Ukraine.

According to Babich, Ukrainians need to overcome their fears of vaccines, and the Ministry of Health and pediatricians need to provide more information.

"We need to protect children from infections, not from vaccines; the vaccine does not pose any threat to the child. There is a fever or pain from the injection, but it is definitely not as scary as respiratory arrest from infections," says the pediatrician.

Whooping cough and the world

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

But whooping cough, like scarlet fever, doctors explained to BBC Ukraine, only peaks every 4-5 years. Although in countries where people have a habit of getting vaccinated regularly, whooping cough will not appear.

The great comeback 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 US and the UK.

In neighboring Poland, there were 326 cases of whooping cough in January and February 2024, compared to 156 during 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 in the Czech Republic had whooping cough at all, but in the last week of 2024 alone, 1,100 cases were recorded.

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

According to Czech Health Minister Vlastimil Valek, this may 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 have mild illness, 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 to blame for the increase in whooping cough. About 300,000 of them ended up in the Czech Republic because of the war.

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

The connection was also rejected by the Czech Minister of Health.

"Blaming Ukrainians for the increase in whooping cough is an evergreen phenomenon of the Czech disinformation scene. The increase in whooping cough is more likely due to the fact that interest in vaccination is declining in our country," Vlastimil Valek wrote on Twitter.

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