(Angie Wang/The Associated Press)
Some communicable respiratory illnesses saw a resurgence in Arkansas last year, specifically pertussis and tuberculosis, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Health.
There were 362 cases of pertussis, known as whooping cough, in Arkansas in 2024, with 86% of those cases in people under 19 years old, ADH public information officer Danyelle McNeill said. In contrast, the state saw 38 pertussis cases in 2023, 19 in 2022 and 16 in 2021. The state had not seen more than 300 cases since 2009, when there were 369 cases.
There were also 119 tuberculosis cases last year, compared to 83 in 2023, 68 in 2022 and 69 in 2021.
People might delay getting diagnosed with either illness and receiving treatment because the coughing that is characteristic of both might not raise any red flags on its own, said Dr. Nikhil Meena, a pulmonologist with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Pertussis is “very vaccine-preventable,” but people are more vulnerable to the disease if several years have passed since vaccination, Meena said.
The five-dose pertussis vaccine for infants and young children is known as DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis), while people 19 and older can receive a similar vaccine every 10 years called TDaP, targeting the same diseases.
The trouble with DTaP is that children “age out of it” and become more vulnerable to pertussis, which is airborne and highly contagious, Meena said.
“You can be talking to somebody and that is enough to give it from one person to another, not even a sneeze or a cough,” he said.
Additionally, people with pertussis remain contagious for at least 21 days, he said.
Meena encouraged vaccinations against pertussis but acknowledged that public skepticism of the efficacy of vaccines has gained traction nationwide over the past five years. COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in 2021, a year after the illness was designated a pandemic, and Arkansas had consistently lower vaccination rates than other states.
Arkansas government entities barred from mandating COVID-19 vaccination
A 2021 state law forbade government agencies from mandating COVID-19 vaccinations. The law sunset in 2023, and lawmakers then passed a new version with no sunset clause.
As of Dec. 27, 15,877 Arkansas children have exemptions from vaccinations for the current school year, an increase of 1,530 students during the 2023-24 school year, according to ADH. For the 2020-21 school year, only 8,196 students were exempt from vaccinations, and the number has increased every school year since.
Meena said medical professionals find it frustrating that it’s “hard to convince people that vaccines are good” since many people “just won’t believe experts anymore” and opponents of vaccines have gained notoriety.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has spread false claims about vaccines.
Both vaccinations and frequent hand-washing effectively reduce people’s chances of catching communicable respiratory diseases, and wearing protective face masks prevent people from spreading an illness if they have one, Meena said. He pointed out that when masking, hand-washing and social distancing were widely practiced during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, all kinds of respiratory diseases, including influenza, were less prevalent.
Unlike pertussis, COVID-19 and influenza, tuberculosis is not currently vaccine-preventable. Like those illnesses, tuberculosis can be spread to several close contacts before being diagnosed, according to both Meena and the Health Department.
Last year, ADH identified 38 of the 119 tuberculosis cases in patients under 18 years old.
On Wednesday, ADH reported 517 COVID-related deaths in the state since the start of 2024, including 33 in the week from Dec. 29 to Jan. 4.
Respiratory illnesses tend to be more common during the winter months because people stay inside more often and because people’s white blood cells — which fight off illnesses — are weaker during those times, Meena said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.