Whooping cough surging in Spokane and statewide as school year begins

Whooping cough is surging in Spokane and across the state since this summer and it may not go away any time soon.

“These elevated case counts are usually prolonged for many months or sometimes a year or more. So this is something we anticipate seeing more of this fall,” said Spokane Regional Health District epidemiologist Mark Springer.

Spokane has seen 86 cases of this disease, preventable with a vaccine, so far this year.

According to the CDC, there have been 844 cases of confirmed whooping cough – also called pertussis – through Oct. 5 in Washington state. That is compared to 68 cases for the whole state in 2023. The last time Washington had a surge of whooping cough was in 2015 when there were more than 1,200 cases.

The surge in Eastern Washington began this summer when single digit cases per month jumped to 17 cases in July. That high number of cases stayed steady in the following months and appears to be going even higher in October. There have been 19 cases this month so far.

“The numbers have been pretty steady and have been increasing a little bit as we’ve gotten kids back in school. But October has already surpassed the total number for each of the past few months. And we’ve still got two weeks to go,” Springer said.

Spokane Public Schools spokesperson Ryan Lancaster said the district has not seen a significant number of absences due to whooping cough. Springer said SRHD has seen cases in schools across the county but they have been “fairly isolated.”

Among adolescents and adults, whooping cough presents as a mild coughing illness that persists between four and eight weeks.

But the disease can be much more serious in younger children, especially toddlers and infants. In some cases these children can have severe coughing spells that can lead to vomiting. In the most severe cases of babies younger than one year old, pertussis can lead to hospitalization or cause death, according to the CDC.

Whooping cough can be treated by a course of antibiotics. This can be critical for young children but it is also recommended adults receive treatment to resolve symptoms sooner and reduce how long they are infectious .

The best way to protect yourself and others from whooping cough is to get vaccinated and make sure kids get the vaccine. Adults should get a booster every 10 years to maintain immunity.

Springer said vaccination rates have fallen for whooping cough, especially among young children. But that drop is not as severe as other vaccines and this spike likely has more to do with a lack of immunity from social isolation during the pandemic. There were almost no cases of whooping cough in 2020 and 2021 and the disease typically surges every seven to 10 years.