Three new cases of whooping cough in Anne Arundel County that made headlines in Maryland this week are part of an ongoing uptick of the highly contagious disease in the United States. But as seriously as Marylanders should take the illness — particularly those who have contact with children under a year old — the spike is not an unexpected development, said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, a department of the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. Like many infectious diseases, whooping cough — cases of which are up tenfold in Maryland since last year — follows natural cycles, proliferating and decreasing at regular intervals.
The nation was due for the jump it typically experiences every three to five years, Adalja said. Whooping cough, formally known as pertussis, is a bacterial infection that affects the respiratory tract. Physicians say its early symptoms can resemble those of the common cold, including a cough, mild fever and a runny nose.
A week or two later, sufferers can develop long coughing fits, including the high-pitched “whooping” sound upon inhaling that gives the infection its name. The effects can last for 10 weeks or more, though antibiotics can help shorten the length of infection and prevent its spread. Vaccines are generally effective both at preventing pertussis and minimizing its spread — the DTaP vaccine is used for children under 7, the Tdap for older individuals and people who a.