Whooping cough cases rise sharply in the Czech Republic
More than 1,400 new cases reported in two weeks
In a follow-up on the pertussis, or whooping cough outbreak in the Czech Republic, The National Institute of Public Health (SZU) has reported an additional 1,436 cases in the past two weeks, including more than 800 last week alone.
This brings the total pertussis cases reported since the beginning of the year through March 17 to 3,101. This is the highest number of registered cases of the infectious disease in the country in a single calendar year since the 1960s.
In 2024, 59 cases of pertussis were already reported in children under one year of age.
The most cases of disease and the highest morbidity are in the age group of 15-19 years, according to SZU. So far this year, 3.44% of patients have been hospitalized.
The regions with the highest number of pertussis cases in 2024 include South Bohemia (641) and Central Bohemia (470), followed by Vysočina (406) and Pardubický (343).
Epidemiologist with the the Centre of epidemiology and microbiology, Státní Zdravotní Ústav, Kateřina Fabiánová was interviewed by local media about the pertussis outbreak and when asked why this unprecedented increase, she said, “There are several reasons, the first is covid. This is the same as other respiratory diseases that are spread by droplets. People had a minimum of contacts, the number of respiratory infections decreased, and people did not transfer viruses or bacteria to each other. So now we have to catch up. Another reason is the acellular vaccine, which is safer than its predecessor, but the duration of protective antibodies decreases relatively quickly after vaccination. It is stated that this is somewhere around three or four years, and then the vaccinated individual gradually becomes susceptible again to the infection. Another factor is that there are changes in the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, which is the cause of whooping cough. Among other things, it reacts to the pressure of vaccination, it develops and people can become infected more easily. Another reason is that we definitely have better and faster diagnostics that will detect previously unrecognized diseases”.
She also predicted, “When I see the current situation, if it stays at least in these numbers, I think we can easily count six to eight thousand cases, maybe even more”.