Louisiana’s Surgeon General Dr. Ralph Abraham confirmed Thursday that two infants have died in the last six months amid an ongoing whooping cough outbreak in the state, and said vaccines are the best way to protect against infections.
The two deaths are the first in Louisiana since 2018, and among just 10 reported nationwide last year.
Newborns are at the highest risk of severe complications and deaths from whooping cough, also known as pertussis, Abraham noted in a Facebook post Thursday.
Pertusissis cases in Louisiana skyrocketed to 149 in 2024, the highest in over a decade and a twelve-fold increase from the 11 cases documented in 2023.
Louisiana has already recorded 110 cases of pertussis in the first three months of this year, Abraham said.
“The Louisiana Department of Health is closely monitoring ongoing increased pertussis activity,” he said. “Anyone who is up-to-date with their pertussis vaccine is well-protected against the virus.”
Vaccines are the best way to protect against the disease, especially for babies, Abraham added.
“The best way to protect newborns from pertussis is for pregnant women to receive a TDaP vaccine during each pregnancy,” his post continued.
Manning Family Children's, formerly Children’s Hospital New Orleans, has been admitting one to two children for whooping cough each week, according to Dr. Mark Kline, the hospital’s chief medical officer — a stark increase from last year.
Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory infection that’s spread through sneezing, close contact and coughing. Hospitalizations and cases reported to the state health department are just the “tip of the iceberg” for how much pertussis is likely spreading across the state, Kline said. And he noted the disease is particularly bad for newborn babies.
“The severe cases, they have fits of coughing that frequently lead to vomiting. They have trouble eating and retaining feeds. They may have seizures,” Kline said. “This is not just a bad cold, or even like a case of the flu.”
The “very serious debilitating illness” can go on for weeks, “and of course in rare cases, it can lead to death,” Kline added.
Kline worked at Texas Children's Hospital for three decades before coming to New Orleans.
“I did not see a single neonatal death in 30 years,” he said.
He said the two deaths from pertussis in Louisiana were striking.
Deaths first reported in February
Abraham’s Facebook post comes five weeks after FOX 8 WVUE-TV first reported the deaths on Feb. 20. LDH did not say when the infants died, but some hospital officials warned staff internally of the deaths and the pertussis outbreak in January.
LDH has not issued a press release or news alert about the outbreak. LDH also declined multiple requests for an interview with WWNO/WRKF.
The health department did not confirm whether the mothers of the infants who died had been vaccinated, citing patient privacy.
“Infants are not eligible to receive a pertussis-containing vaccine until they are 2 months old, which can leave infants under two months at particularly high risk for severe disease,” LDH said in a statement that also said getting vaccinated during pregnancy is the best way to protect newborns.
Pediatricians urge vaccinations
Kline and other pediatricians are urging everyone to check their vaccination status and get vaccinated if they’re eligible, both to protect themselves and vulnerable people around them.
“You can prevent severe disease by being immunized,” said Dr. Joseph Bocchini, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the president of the Louisiana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Vaccination during pregnancy has been shown to decrease the risk of newborns getting sick from whooping cough, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is recommended by both the CDC and the American Academy of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The antibodies created by a mother’s body can pass through the placenta and protect her fetus for the first few months of life, before the infant is eligible for their first whooping cough vaccine (known as DTaP, because it also protects against tetanus and diphtheria) at the age of two months, Bocchini said.
It’s also vital for anyone coming into contact with young children to be vaccinated, he said.
“It's really important that families understand that you have to build what the CDC calls a ‘cocoon’ around the child, meaning that everybody who is in contact with the very young infant be up to date with their pertussis vaccine,” Bocchini said.
A 'heartbreaking' disease
Whooping cough is one of the most highly contagious diseases, infecting an estimated 80% of people who are not immunized and are exposed to an infected person. It’s caused by the bacterium Bordatella pertussis and spreads through respiratory droplets.
Vaccines have been so successful at fighting the spread of whooping cough that some pediatricians have rarely seen the disease during their careers. Dr. Ashley Saucier, a pediatric emergency medicine doctor in New Orleans and a frequent promoter of vaccines on social media, said she’s only seen whooping cough a handful of times in her 20-year career.
“It's really heartbreaking to watch. I mean, these babies struggle to breathe like babies with RSV do,” she said. “These babies are at higher risk for pneumonia, so more fluid in their lungs.”
Saucier said she was shocked to learn that two infants had died from whooping cough, given how rare the disease has become.
She worried that vaccine skepticism could be contributing to the whooping cough outbreak, along with the measles outbreaks across the U.S.
“The vaccine hesitancy is a huge part of why we're seeing a resurgence of these diseases and illnesses that we haven't seen for a very long, or haven't seen to this extent,” Saucier said.
Abraham’s Facebook post warning about whooping cough comes after he banned mass vaccination events and the promotion of vaccinations at the health department.
But he has also recently warned about the measles outbreak. In a Feb. 25 article, published five days after news broke of the whooping cough deaths in Louisiana, Abraham told the Shreveport Times that he was “absolutely concerned” about the Texas measles outbreak. He said that adults and children should be vaccinated against measles, the Times reported. The article did not mention whooping cough.
Abraham announced his sweeping policy ending vaccine promotion in an email to staff on Feb. 14, one day after anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Abraham’s policy was an expansion of one the health department had quietly instituted last year, ending the promotion of COVID, flu and mpox vaccines.
Saucier criticized the health department’s policy, calling it dangerous and disappointing.
The Louisiana State Medical Society and eight other medical organizations called for an end to the politicization of vaccines in the wake of the policy.
