If you have children around you, You have definitely heard about whooping cough in recent weeks. In schools, daycare centers, with childminders, at the heart of extracurricular activities… The disease is making an alarming comeback in France.
Since the beginning of this year, 17 people, including 14 children and three adults, have died due to the infection. All indicators confirm “an epidemic situation established in the territory with a very significant circulation of the bacteria during the first half of 2024, and which is intensifying in recent weeks”, indicates Public Health France this Friday. The number of cases is already higher than for the whole of 2023, and the number of deaths is already higher than during the previous peak, which was reached over the whole of 2017 with ten deaths.
Twelve infants died
In details, “since January 2024 and until June 26, 2024, a total of 17 deaths have been found: among them, three adults over 85 years old (in two regions) and 14 children under 15 years old (distributed in seven regions)”, indicated the health agency in an epidemiological report.
Twelve children who died from the respiratory infection were infants., aged one to two months, one child was four years old. A last child, aged one month, “did not have whooping cough indicated as the cause of death as it was but had been hospitalized for whooping cough a few days before”, according to Public Health France.
“The magnitude of the peak and the duration of this epidemic cycle are not predictable”
To the hospital, “the weekly number of visits to the emergency room for whooping cough has increased sevenfold between” March 4 and June 23. The increases “continue every week”. The number of hospitalizations after visits to the emergency room is on the rise” also since the start of the year, with a very significant increase since the end of April: a number multiplied by 6 between March 4 and June 23″, indicates the bulletin. For this first half, 80 infants under 12 months were hospitalized, 74% of whom are under 6 months old. A number already higher than the 2023 total, with 41 cases.
“The magnitude of the peak and the duration of this epidemic cycle are not predictable”warns Public Health France. Given the the high contagiousness of the disease, “the epidemiological situation in France requires increased vigilance during the Olympic Games, particularly in the event of cluster cases involving people at risk of serious forms (pregnant women, unprotected infants, those with immunodeficiencies, and those suffering from chronic respiratory illnesses”. Public Health France also reminds “the importance of vaccination in pregnant women recommended since April 2022 and which is the best possible protection to protect infants”.
An infection that is very easily transmitted
Whooping cough, a respiratory infection caused by bacteria, is transmitted very easily by air, in contact with a sick person with a cough, mainly in the family or in groups.
Deaths are rare, but can occur particularly among infants too young to be vaccinated (less than two months), more affected by severe forms.
On the European continent, 19 deaths from whooping cough, including 11 infants, were recorded in the first three months of 2024, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). This count did not include French deaths. Worldwide, there are 40 million cases and 300,000 deaths each year on average.
