The Dickensian disease is the latest Victorian-era ailment to stage a comeback in the West.
Just when you get rid of one cough, another emerges in its place.
While the the Covid-19 pandemic officially ended last year, cases of pertussis — or whooping cough, as it’s more commonly known — have been spiking across Europe in recent months.
The retro infection, a staple of Charles Dickens’ novels, is the latest Victorian-era ailment to stage a comeback in the West after an increase in measles, syphilis, gout, leprosy and malaria.
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A report from the British Medical Journal says that part of the reason for the spread is a drop in vaccination rates.
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Europe’s disease agency also suggested Covid could be to blame for the rise.
“The current increase is potentially linked to lower circulation during Covid-19 pandemic, combined with suboptimal vaccination uptake in certain groups during the Covid-19 pandemic,” it wrote in a March report.
Getting people vaccinated is key to stemming the outbreak, but that’s becoming easier said than done.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
While the the Covid-19 pandemic officially ended last year, cases of pertussis — or whooping cough, as it’s more commonly known — have been spiking across Europe in recent months.
The retro infection, a staple of Charles Dickens’ novels, is the latest Victorian-era ailment to stage a comeback in the West after an increase in measles, syphilis, gout, leprosy and malaria.
In Czechia — where there are reports of whooping cough vaccine shortages — case numbers are at their highest in 60 years, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
“Most of the rise in the past couple of years has been because of a return to pre-Covid levels,” said Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the university of East Anglia.
Teenagers between 15 and 19 make up the majority of current cases but “virtually all deaths” in the EU and EEA this year have been in babies under three months, according to the ECDC.
In the U.K., five regional health services reported that the pandemic adversely affected vaccination rates, on top of a longer-term decline.
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