After battling measles outbreak, Southern US hit with record high cases of deadly Victorian-era disease

Cases of a Victorian-era disease have surged to an 11-year high in Texas, officials have warned. 

State data showed more than 3,500 cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, had been recorded in the state through the end of October this year, the latest date available.

It is not clear when most of these cases were recorded, but the current tally, which is two months before the end of 2025, is already four-fold higher than the tally in 2024, 10 times the tally in 2023, and the highest number recorded since 2014. It is also just below the record since 1959, when 3,985 cases were detected in 2013.

It comes as whooping cough cases rise nationwide, with the tally in 2024 being six-fold higher than that in the previous year. Latest data for the US was not available due to the Government shutdown, which has now lasted for 42 days.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis that spreads easily through tiny droplets in the air.

It often begins with cold-like symptoms and a mild cough, followed a week or two later by severe coughing that can last for several weeks. 

In serious cases, patients may suffer from prolonged coughing fits so fierce they suffer broken ribs, and may also suffer from pneumonia, seizures and brain damage. It is particularly dangerous for infants, with one in 50 unvaccinated children under six months old who are diagnosed with the disease not surviving the infection.

The disease can be prevented with the DTaP (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccine, which is 98 percent effective at protecting against the bacteria. It is given in a five-dose series beginning at two months and six years old. Boosters are given as the Tdap vaccine to adolescents and adults.

But uptake of the vaccine has fallen in Texas amid surging vaccine skepticism. Some 92 percent of kindergarteners were fully vaccinated with Tdap last school year, compared to 94 percent in the previous year.

Experts say that herd immunity, or when enough people have protection against a disease so that it no longer spreads, is only achieved when at least 95 percent of people are vaccinated against a disease such as whooping cough. DTaP vaccination levels in Texas have not been at 95 percent since at least 2012.

Officials at the Texas Department of State Health Services raised the alarm over the surging cases, issuing an alert last week.

They did not reveal the number of patients who had been hospitalized or died from the disease this year, but said that 85 percent of patients infected with whooping cough in the state in 2025 were children. It was not clear whether the children were vaccinated.

There was also no information on specific areas in the state where cases were surging.

Texas officials warned that their alert marked the second consecutive year that Texas had recorded a rise in whooping cough cases, and the second in a row that they had issued a health alert over the disease.  

In the alert, officials said: ‘Pertussis cases in Texas and the United States were lower than usual during and immediately following the Covid pandemic, but pertussis activity has quickly rebounded in the last few years.’

The alert added: ‘The best way to protect against pertussis is immunization. 

‘Parents should ensure children are up-to-date on pertussis immunizations, and pregnant women and others who will be around newborns should get a booster dose to protect babies from what can be a deadly infection.’

Dr Hector Ocaranza, a pediatrician at the Texas Medical Association, told the Texas Tribune: ‘We practitioners and public health professionals are concerned because we are seeing a year-after-year trend of significant increases in cases when this is preventable.

‘Especially a disease that can have such a severe effect on infants, older people, and those who have chronic conditions.’

The surge comes just two months after the state declared an end to its measles outbreak, which saw 762 confirmed cases and two deaths, the biggest outbreak in the state since 1992, when 990 cases were recorded in a single outbreak, according to the state’s health authorities. This outbreak was predominantely among unvaccinated school-age children living on the state’s Gulf of America coastline.

The outbreak saw Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Junior visit the area and urge people to get vaccinated against measles before it ended.

The deaths of two young girls, one aged eight years old, were recorded in the outbreak.

It also comes barely a week after Florida also raised the alarm over surging whooping cough cases in their state.

The state warned that, as of September 27, the latest data available, the state had recorded 1,295 case, an 81 percent surge from the previous year.

In Florida, DTaP vaccination rates were down to 90.6 percent in 2024, the lowest in a decade.

Prior to the introduction of the whooping cough vaccine in 1948, the US saw as many as 250,000 cases of the disease and 7,300 to 9,000 deaths per year. Cases steadily dropped by more than 90 percent each year compared to the pre-vaccine era, the CDC states.

The CDC has also noted that the bacteria that cause whooping cough, Bordetella pertussis, is prone to mutations, which could make it able to evade vaccines.

Dr Marcos Mestre, chief clinical operations officer at Nicklaus Children’s Health System in Miami, told CBS last year: ‘We have been seeing some increase in pertussis cases that are coming through our emergency departments.

‘Not necessarily requiring admission, but coming in for evaluation and treatment.

‘They’re coughing to the point that they can’t catch their breath. And those are the children we really worry about, when infants are getting infected and that could cause more severe illness.’