During the week ending September 5, 25 new cases of whooping cough or pertussis had been reported in North Macedonia, which is a 47.1 percent increase compared to the previous seven-day period, the Institute of Public Health of the Republic of North Macedonia announced. In regard to geographic distribution, most of the cases have been reported in the capital Skopje.
The age of the infected patients ranges from 1 month to 60 yeas of age, while most of them or about a third, are under one year old. In regard to their vaccination status, the infected people include 18 persons who are unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated or have unknown vaccination status, 6 had received full vaccination dosage, and one was additionally vaccinated according to their age. Five of these twenty five new cases had been hospitalized.
Between January 1 and September 5, a total of 1074 new cases of whooping cough had been registered. This is an enormous increase of the number of infected compared to the previous five year period (2019-2023) when a total of 10 cases had been registered.
