Most whooping cough cases registered in one week since start of year

There were 1,494 new cases of whooping cough in Czechia last week, the biggest weekly increase since the start of this year, according to the latest data from the State Health Institute. The total number of registered whooping cough cases so far this year is 7,888, the most in one year since 1959, i.e. one year after the introduction of the vaccine in Czechoslovakia, when there were 18,978 cases over the whole year.

The most affected age group is teenagers between 15 and 19 years old, who make up a third of the total number of cases. Some 119 infants under one year of age, for whom whooping cough can be very dangerous, have also been infected. Around 2.3 percent of those infected so far have required hospitalisation.