Whooping cough jump concerns health officials

Grant County Health District staff are responding to a jump in whooping cough activity.

Since June 2024, there have been 21 people with confirmed whooping cough and 7 other people with the disease symptoms and linkage to infected individuals.

Most of those infected had not been vaccinated or were not up to date with the vaccine for whooping cough, also called pertussis.

Before this increase, Grant County’s last confirmed pertussis case was in 2019. A similar rise in whoopingcough infections has been reported across Washington state.

“The whooping cough vaccine is the best protection we have against the infection,” the health district stated in a press release. “GCHD urges you to get the whooping cough vaccine if you are not up to date and stay home if you are sick.”

The district is asking that healthcare providers consider whooping cough in any patient who shows symptoms and immediately notify GCHD of the suspected infection at (509) 766-7960.

Twenty-two of 28 infections could be linked to Slavic churches in Moses Lake and Soap Lake as of Aug. 21. At least 23 of the 28 infections occurred in people 16 years or younger.

All but one of the ill people were not vaccinated or not up to date on vaccinations.