Nearly 1,000 cases of whooping cough have been reported in Western Australia this year, with national infection figures the highest since records began.

Department of Health data shows there were 220 cases of whooping cough in Washington state in October alone, nearly three times the number of cases reported in the state for the entire state. last year, which amounted to 78.

In South Australia, the number of cases this year is 13 times higher than in 2023.

It comes as authorities launch a new effort to encourage families to vaccinate their children, with participation rates in the school vaccination program against the disease currently standing at around 62 percent.

Washington Department of Health’s director of communicable diseases, Paul Armstrong, said whooping cough has caused the deaths of three babies and one elderly person in the past decade.

“This cough can be so severe and so prolonged that the child… or adult may vomit after having these coughing fits,” he told ABC Radio Perth.

“They lose their breath so much (that) babies can turn blue…sometimes people can even have rib fractures.”

Perth resident Glenn Pizey was confronted with the severity of his illness after being hospitalized twice with whooping cough at the age of 45.

“I thought I was going to die,” he said.

“I was coughing up blood, they hospitalized me twice when I was in Kalgoorlie.

“You think ‘oh yeah, only kids understand that’… it was absolutely terrifying.”

Mr Pizey said it took about two months to recover from the illness and he encouraged others to stay up to date on their vaccinations.

Dr Armstrong said it was not uncommon to see an increase in whooping cough cases every four to six years.

“The level of immunity in the community declines over time.

“We are reaching this trigger point where outbreaks are picking up again and we haven’t had an outbreak like this since 2015… and the numbers right now across the country are the highest since records began in the early 1990s .”

Nicknamed the 100-day cough, this disease is particularly worrying in young children.

“If anyone has ever heard the whooping sound that a baby makes after those coughing fits, they will never forget it, it’s quite confronting,” Dr Armstrong said.

“We have pretty good vaccination rates among babies…up to 90 percent and that’s enough to control the epidemic among babies.

“However, for children who are not vaccinated, if someone exposes them to the whooping cough bacteria, they can become infected. So we really need to increase our numbers in this adolescent age group in particular.”

Dr Armstrong said vaccination during pregnancy has also been shown to be effective in preventing infection in newborns.

The vaccine is free for pregnant women and children under four years old.

Students aged 12 to 13 can access free school vaccination programs.

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