PRAGUE, July 29 (Xinhua) -- The epidemiological situation of whooping cough, or pertussis, has stagnated in recent weeks, the State Health Institute (SZU) said on Monday.
The SZU reported that the number of new cases has been rising more slowly over the past four weeks, with about 800 cases per week in July compared to over 1,000 weekly cases in previous months.
Since the beginning of the year, the country has recorded 25,560 infections and eight deaths, according to the report. By comparison, there were 494 cases in the Czech Republic last year, and only 96 in 2022.
However, only about 2.4 percent of the more than 25,000 people infected in the country this year needed hospital care, which the SZU said "suggests that the disease does not have a serious course in most cases."
The health institute's statistics include only those patients who have been reported by a doctor to the Infectious Diseases Information System. The highest morbidity rate is among teenagers, with nearly 400 children under one year old also infected.
"Given that we expect significant under-reporting of the disease and that many cases of infection do not make it into the Infectious Disease Information System for various reasons, the actual incidence of infection in the population is likely to be much higher," the SZU said in the report.
Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory disease characterized by severe, hacking coughs that can persist for several weeks.
Local media report that this year's outbreak in the country of 10.9 million people is the most severe since the 1960s. The outbreak is mainly attributed to less effective vaccines for teenagers and a decrease in overall vaccination rates.
