Causes Whooping Cough

This highly contagious disease that is caused by the bacterium bordetella pertussis affects the lungs, throat and nose and results in severe bursts or bouts of violent coughing, commonly seen in infants and children and also in adults nowadays.


When the violent fit of incessant coughing for a minute or more subsides and the individual draws in breath, there occurs a whooping sound.



Whooping cough was first reported way back in the 1500s. There are vaccines available which can immunize a child against this distressing disease.


I have already mentioned which bacterium causes this disease. Since the disease is contagious, the bacterium travels from one person to another through nasal discharge when the infected individual laughs, talks, coughs or sneezes. The bacteria at that time becomes airborne and spread to another person nearby. A person might get infected when an infected individual sheds very small droplets of fluid from the mouth or the nose.


When these droplets are inhaled in any way or if these droplets, after falling on the hands, are touched by the nose or mouth, another person will get infected.
Direct contact is therefore one of the main ways or causes of whooping cough spreading from one person to another.


It has often been observed that when there are adults in a house who suffer from whooping cough, the children in that house or infants often contract that infection from the adult, because they haven’t yet received vaccination or are under immunized.


Lack of immunization or vaccination is one of the main reasons why individuals contract whooping cough. Since a dry cough is often the only visible symptom or indication of whooping cough in an adult, it goes unnoticed and that is how the bacteria spreads from adults to children or other individuals.


When a number of children are staying together in hostel or dormitories in a boarding school or have gone out to a children’s summer camp, the infection from one student can spread to another through the methods described above.


Breastfed infants can catch this infection and a newborn babe can contract this RTI from its mother during birth. The mother had probably acquired it during labor.

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