Whooping cough cases nearly double on Long Island, surge in U.S.

Whooping cough, the contagious respiratory disease that causes a persistent cough, is on the rise on Long Island and across the United States, experts said.

The distinctive cough is punctuated by a gasp for air.

"It can last for weeks on end, even with treatment," said Dr. Eric Levene, a pediatrician who works with several Long Island offices of Allied Physicians Group. He said the disease, known as pertussis, is sometimes called "the 100-day cough."

Cases on Long Island have almost doubled over the last year. Suffolk County has reported 249 cases so far, compared with 118 for all of 2023. Nassau has 223 reported cases so far this year and 134 for 2023, according to New York State Health Department data as of Oct. 15. It's the most cases of whooping cough on Long Island since 2012, when there were 648 cases for the entire year. 

Nationally, cases have quadrupled, from 3,962 at this time in 2023 to 17,579 this year as of Oct. 5, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some reasons for the uptick are waning immunization and better testing, doctors said. In addition, personal protection such as masking during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic, reduced the rate of many illnesses including pertussis.

"Pertussis is cyclical, peaking every two to five years," Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott said in a statement. "It is very important for everyone who is eligible to get a pertussis vaccine to protect not only themselves but also those who are most vulnerable to complications from this disease — babies who are too young to be vaccinated."

Pertussis is spread among people through respiratory droplets or airborne droplets. It starts with typical cold symptoms: runny nose, congestion, mild cough. But after about two weeks a person will develop a "heavy, hard cough and the classic whoop sound," Levene said.

"If there is a change in symptoms like a spike in fever or difficulty breathing ... that’s the time to go to the doctor," he said. "If that cough has been persisting for seven to 10 days, even if it's not changing, it's time to go to the doctor."

People with whooping cough are treated with antibiotics to battle the bacterial infection but the cough can still linger.

"The coughing is very bad," said Dr. Sharon Nachman, division chief of pediatric infectious disease at Stony Brook Children's Hospital. "Sometimes kids actually get some bleeding in their eyes because they're coughing so horribly. And the coughing a lot of times leads to the throwing up."

For the week of Oct. 5, more than five times as many pertussis cases were reported to the CDC from across the nation compared with the same time last year, the agency said.

Babies are vaccinated at 2, 4 and 6 months of age with the pertussis vaccine and should receive booster shots between 15 through 18 months, and then 4 through 6 years old and 11 to 12 years old.

The vaccine also protects people from tetanus.

Interest in vaccinations waned during COVID, said Nachman. "People didn't go to their pediatrician to get their shots, and kids were not in school. There was a whole shift to home schooling versus in-classroom schooling ... we're still catching up from that."

Children who were vaccinated as infants but didn’t get their boosters at the age of 10 or 11 were at risk. And that risk extended to close family members such as siblings, parents and grandparents, Nachman said.

When a child is diagnosed with pertussis, their close family members are also given antibiotics.

"We want to circle the wagons," Nachman said. "We want to stop everybody from catching it and passing it around."

By Lisa L. Colangelo

lisa.colangelo@newsday.com@lisalcolangelo

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.