Can’t stop coughing? This is the ‘childhood bug’ that’s to blame, how it’s soaring in Britain… and how adults are the main victims. Our experts reveal everything you must do

It is, as ailments go, among the most innocuous sounding: a cough. After all, everyone will have one from time to time. And for the vast majority, it gets better without much intervention, bar a few boiled sweets – perhaps in a day or two, perhaps in bad cases after a few weeks or more. Except, in some cases, it doesn’t.

The coughing, hacking and spluttering doesn’t resolve and can linger, becoming an almost unbearable problem. Fits are at best an annoyance to sufferers – and those around them. But they can also leave those affected breathless, uncomfortable and make sleeping, eating, socialising and even talking a daily struggle.

And this is far from uncommon: chronic cough – medically defined as a cough lasting eight weeks or more – is thought to affect one in ten people in the UK.

In many cases, despite seeking medical help, patients are told there is no cure, leaving countless Britons suffering for months – and sometimes even years.

But now, experts have made a startling discovery: many cases of chronic cough may, in fact, be triggered by an undiagnosed bacterial infection of the lungs once thought to primarily affect children.

Whooping cough – also known as pertussis, or the 100-day cough – is a nasty bug that leaves children with a rasping cough and breathing difficulties. It can even prove deadly. Two years ago, during a severe UK outbreak, 11 infants died as a result of the infection. The condition is on the rise in the UK – whooping cough cases in England increased by more than 1,600 per cent in 2024, compared with the previous year, according the UK Health Security Agency.

Crucially, studies have also revealed that about six out of 10 of these infections are occurring in adults – completely changing doctors’ understanding of the disease.

Celebrities were caught up in the epidemic, with presenter Jeremy Clarkson revealing he’d suffered a ‘never-ending’ cough lasting from late 2023 to mid-2024, and was regularly ‘coughing myself to sleep at night’. Experts believe that whooping cough symptoms are different in adults – generally not leading to breathing difficulties but to a mild, long-lasting cough.

This means there is a good chance many hard-to-treat cases of chronic cough could be due to whooping cough.

This is significant because experts say that, treated early, this long-lasting cough can be avoided. Campaigners are also calling on the Government to begin offering older adults a whooping cough vaccine to combat high levels of chronic cough.

‘Whooping cough was once regarded as a disease of young babies and children, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that adults are affected too,’ says Professor Andrew Preston, a microbiologist at the University of Bath. ‘For these adults, the main symptom is typically a chronic cough. It’s possible that more adults are being infected with whooping cough than before.

‘However, there’s a strong possibility that adults have always been susceptible, but we never realised because the only sign was a long- lasting cough and GPs didn’t test for the infection.’

So, what is whooping cough – and how can it be treated?

Whooping cough is caused by a bacterium called Bordetella pertussis. Studies show it is highly contagious and lives exclusively in the human respiratory tract – in other words, the nose and throat.

It is generally passed on via coughs and sneezes – and tends to circulate during the winter and spring months.

The infection typically begins with a mild, cold-like illness lasting one to two weeks – known as the catarrhal stage.

After that, the coughing begins. In children, the symptoms of pertussis are distinctive – the cough so severe that young patients struggle to breathe, causing them to gasp for air, often with a high-pitched ‘whoop’ sound, giving rise to its name.

During the 2024 outbreak, there were almost 15,000 lab-confirmed cases up from about 3,000 the previous year. The true figure is likely to be far higher, however, as standard tests become much less accurate if swabs are not taken within the first three to four weeks after symptoms begin – meaning many suspected cases are never formally diagnosed.

And although infection levels have fallen since the 2024 surge, doctors say they are still seeing higher-than-normal rates of what they believe is whooping cough.

Experts say that the rise is in large part due to a change in the vaccine used to treat the bug.

In 2004, the NHS switched the injection it offered to young children – it’s part of the 6-in-1 jabs – and pregnant women due to safety concerns about the old vaccine. It was very effective but was linked to rare cases of brain damage.

While the new vaccine is just as effective at preventing severe whooping cough symptoms, it now appears to be less effective at preventing the spread of the bacteria that causes it.

‘This vaccine change is probably why we’re seeing much more disease in young people,’ says Prof Preston. ‘It’s still a very potent vaccine that will protect children from the worst of the illness. But it allows it to keep spreading. The immunity also wears off over time, meaning most of the effects are gone by adulthood.’

However, intriguingly, experts say the vaccine change is not necessarily the reason why so many adults are now developing whooping cough. Instead, they argue that the bacteria has always been more prevalent in adults – we simply didn’t realise.

‘We never used to widely test for whooping cough,’ says Prof Preston. ‘Patients would only be swabbed for the bacteria if they were seriously unwell. But when, about ten years after we switched vaccines, it was first noticed that the new jab wasn’t as effective at preventing spread, we started testing more widely.

‘And, when we did, we realised that far more adults were infected than we first thought.’

Experts say these findings are significant because it may mean that, for decades, patients with chronic cough have not been getting the correct treatment – causing them needless suffering.

Studies show that early antibiotic treatment can lower the risk of developing a chronic cough – however, once severe coughing fits begin, then it is typically too late to prevent the symptoms.

One patient badly affected by whooping cough is Joanne Noton, a personal trainer and health coach who believes she came down with the bug in February 2024 – but was told by doctors that adults couldn’t catch it. Joanne, 46, from Lincolnshire, believes she picked up the infection from a client. She says the symptoms were, at first, mild – a temperature and a bit of a cold.

However, within two weeks, things changed.

‘I was coughing so hard I was struggling to breathe,’ she says. ‘I went to A&E, where I was given an inhaler and they did tests to look for signs of infection but they couldn’t find anything. I was asked whether it could be whooping cough, as I’d heard there was an outbreak, but the doctor laughed and said that adults don’t get whooping cough.’

Joanne’s symptoms lasted for more than four months. At one point, she coughed so much that she dislocated a rib. ‘I tried everything to make the cough go away,’ Joanne says. ‘Honey in tea, breathing exercises, the lot. But nothing worked. It wasn’t until July that I felt healthy again.’

Joanne says she believes that early diagnosis and treatment could have prevented the months of suffering she experienced.

‘I’ve since learned that if you treat whooping cough quickly with antibiotics then the worst symptoms can be prevented,’ she says. ‘But I was laughed out by doctors and it ended up wrecking my life for four months.’

Typically, antibiotics are only given within the first three weeks of symptoms starting, in order to eliminate the bacteria and stop the patient from being infectious.

After this point, the bacteria will often have cleared from the body, meaning antibiotics are unlikely to improve symptoms.

‘The cough is an immune system response to the damage to the lungs caused by the bacteria, not the pertussis itself,’ says Prof Preston.

‘I’ve seen patients who had whooping cough two years ago who still have a chronic cough.’ Luckily, there are options.

Physical therapy, where patients are taught exercises that relax the muscles in the throat, can ease the symptoms.

There are also nerve pain drugs, like a daily tablet called pregabalin, that can help.

Experts say another method that is being explored is a low dose of morphine – an opioid – to manage symptoms, providing the patients are carefully monitored due to its addictive properties.

Researchers are now calling on the Government to consider offering older adults a vaccine.

Prof Preston adds: ‘It may not be fatal for adults but that doesn’t mean whooping cough is trivial.

‘There’s a good argument for offering a whooping cough vaccine later in life – to try to help so many people avoid what is truly a debilitating problem.’