A very strong rebound in whooping cough is confirmed in France, where nearly 6,000 cases were recorded over the first five months of the year. This is much more than for the whole of 2023.
“For the first five months of 2024, 5,854 cases were diagnosed“, compared to 495 cases over the whole of 2023, 67 in 2022 and 34 in 2021, indicated the national reference center (CNR) for whooping cough, at the Pasteur Institute, confirming information from the Parisian.
For this very contagious and sometimes serious disease, it is “a fairly explosive rebound“, declared to AFP the director of the CNR, Sylvain Brisse. “We expected an upsurge in this cyclical disease – which peaks every three to five years – knowing that the last peak was in 2018. The Covid period delayed the recovery, now it’s really coming back in force“, he added.
A resumption of the circulation of whooping cough “begins in France“since the beginning of 2024, Public Health France warned in mid-April, calling for vigilance and recalling the importance of vaccination.
“In the first quarter, around fifteen clusters, mainly in communities (nursery, primary schools, daycare centers and nursery homes) but also family“, pointed out the agency.
In France, previous epidemic peaks were observed in 1997, 2000, 2005, 2009, 2012-2013 and 2017-2018.
Prolonged coughing fits
Whooping cough, a respiratory infection caused by bacteria, is transmitted very easily through the air, through contact with a sick person with a cough, mainly in the family or in communities.
It causes frequent and prolonged coughing fits, and can be serious for infants and vulnerable people (chronic respiratory patients, immunocompromised people, pregnant women). Deaths are rare but can occur particularly in very young unvaccinated infants.
On the European continent, more than 32,000 cases of whooping cough were recorded overall in thirty countries in the first three months of 2024, more than in the whole of 2023 (more than 25,000), according to a report from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published on May 8.
Significant epidemics have been reported in recent months in Croatia, Denmark and the United Kingdom and significant increases in cases in Belgium, Spain and Germany.
From January 2023 to the end of March 2024, 19 deaths were reported on the continent, 11 of infants and 8 of adults over 60 years old.
