Whooping cough cases climbing for decadesAs with many infectious diseases, cases of whooping cough dropped to unusually low levels during the pandemic as people limited social interactions and took other precautions to defend against Covid-19. In 2020, the US had about 6,000 cases of pertussis, and that number dropped even further in 2021 to roughly 2,000 cases. Whooping cough starts with symptoms that look a lot like a regular cold: a runny nose, sneezing, a low-grade fever and a tickly cough. That’s led to a hunt for better, more durable immunizations against whooping cough that also don’t cause as many side effects. In some ways, whooping cough is an ideal infection to test in human challenge models.

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Persons: ”, Susan Hariri, Archana Chatterjee, Chatterjee, they’re, it’s, pertussis –, Hariri, Tod Merkel, Merkel, It’s, That’s, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, Melinda Wharton Organizations: CNN, US Centers for Disease Control, CDC’s National Center, Food and Drug Administration, Chicago Medical School, Products Advisory, Covid, FDA’s, Vaccines Research, Regulators, CNN Health, FDA, National Center Locations: United States, Canada