Can’t stop coughing? This is the ‘childhood bug’ that’s to blame, how it’s soaring in Britain… and how adults are the main victims. Our experts reveal everything you need to do

It is one of the most harmless sounds among diseases: cough. After all, everyone will have one from time to time. And for the vast majority, it improves without much intervention, with the exception of a few boiled sweets – perhaps within a day or two, perhaps after a few weeks or longer in bad cases. However, in some cases this is not the case.

Coughing, coughing, and spitting do not resolve and may continue and become an almost unbearable problem. Seizures are, at best, an inconvenience for the person having the seizure and those around them. But they can leave those affected breathless, uncomfortable, and make sleeping, eating, socializing, and even speaking a daily struggle.

And it’s not unusual: chronic cough, medically defined as a cough lasting eight weeks or more, is thought to affect one in ten people in the UK.

In many cases, patients are told there is no cure even though they seek medical help, causing countless people to suffer for months, sometimes even years.

But now experts have made a surprising discovery: Many cases of chronic cough may actually be triggered by an undiagnosed bacterial infection in the lungs that was once thought to primarily affect children.

Whooping cough, also known as whooping cough or 100-day cough, is a nasty bug that causes a wheezing cough and difficulty breathing in children. It can even be fatal. During a severe outbreak in England two years ago, 11 babies died due to infection. The situation is escalating in the UK; Whooping cough cases in England have increased by more than 1,600 per cent in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the UK Health Safety Agency.

Importantly, studies have found that nearly six in 10 of these infections occur in adults; This completely changes doctors’ understanding of the disease.

Presenter Jeremy Clarkson revealed he suffered from an ‘endless’ cough from late 2023 to mid-2024 and regularly ‘coughed to sleep at night’. Experts believe that symptoms of whooping cough in adults differ; It usually does not cause breathing difficulties but a mild, long-term cough.

This means that many cases of hard-to-treat chronic cough are likely caused by whooping cough.

This is important because experts say this long-term cough can be prevented if treated early. Campaigners are also calling on the Government to start offering whooping cough vaccination to older adults to combat high levels of chronic cough.

‘Whooping cough was once considered a disease of young babies and children, but it is increasingly clear that adults are also affected,’ says microbiologist Professor Andrew Preston of the University of Bath. ‘The main symptom for these adults is typically a chronic cough. More adults are likely to catch whooping cough than before.

‘However, there is a strong possibility that adults were always susceptible, but we never realized this because the only sign was a prolonged cough and GPs did not test for infection.’

So what is whooping cough and how can it be treated?

Whooping cough is caused by a bacteria called Bordetella pertussis. Research shows that it is highly contagious and lives only in the human respiratory tract, namely the nose and throat.

It is usually transmitted through coughs and sneezes and tends to enter the circulation during the winter and spring months.

The infection begins with a mild, cold-like illness known as the flu phase, which typically lasts one to two weeks.

After that the cough begins. The symptoms of whooping cough in children are unique; The cough is so severe that young patients have difficulty breathing, causing them to gasp for air, often producing a high-pitched “whooping” sound, which gave rise to its name.

During the 2024 outbreak, the number of laboratory-confirmed cases rose to almost 15,000, from nearly 3,000 the previous year. However, the true figure is likely to be much higher as standard tests will be much less accurate if swabs are not taken within the first three to four weeks after the onset of symptoms; This means that many suspected cases may never be formally diagnosed.

Presenter Jeremy Clarkson reveals he has a ‘never-ending’ cough from late 2023 to mid-2024

And although infection levels have fallen since the 2024 surge, doctors say they are still seeing higher-than-normal rates of the disease, which they believe is whooping cough.

Experts say the increase is largely due to a change in the vaccine used to treat the bug.

In 2004 the NHS changed the injection it offered to young children (part of 6-in-1 vaccines) and pregnant women due to safety concerns about the old vaccine. It was very effective but was linked to rare cases of brain damage.

While the new vaccine is just as effective at preventing severe whooping cough symptoms, it now appears to be less effective at preventing the spread of the bacteria that causes it.

“This vaccine change is probably why we are seeing more disease in young people,” says Prof Preston. ‘This is still a very powerful vaccine that will protect children from the worst of the disease. But it allows it to continue to spread. ‘Immunity also weakens over time, meaning most effects disappear by adulthood.’

But surprisingly, the vaccine change is no longer the reason so many adults catch whooping cough, experts say. Instead, they suggest that bacteria have always been more common in adults; We didn’t realize this.

“We would never test for pertussis on a large scale,” says Prof Preston. ‘Patients would only be sampled for bacteria if they were seriously unwell. But about a decade after switching vaccines, when it first became apparent that the new vaccine wasn’t as effective at preventing spread, we began testing more widely.

‘And when we did this, we realized that many more adults were infected than we first thought.’

Experts say these findings are important because it could mean that patients with chronic cough have not received the right treatment for decades, causing unnecessary suffering.

Research shows that early antibiotic treatment may reduce the risk of chronic cough; However, once severe coughing attacks begin, it is often too late to prevent symptoms.

One of the patients badly affected by whooping cough is personal trainer and health coach Joanne Noton, who believes she contracted the disease in February 2024.

One of the patients badly affected by whooping cough was personal trainer and health coach Joanne Noton, who believes she caught the disease in February 2024, but doctors said adults cannot catch it. Joanne, 46, from Lincolnshire, believes she caught the infection from a customer. He said the symptoms were mild at first, with a fever and a bit of a cold.

But within two weeks, things changed.

‘I was coughing so much I was having trouble breathing,’ he says. ‘I went to A&E where I was given an inhaler and they did tests to look for signs of infection but they found nothing. I was asked if it was whooping cough because I heard there was an epidemic, but the doctor laughed and said adults don’t get whooping cough.’

Joanne’s symptoms lasted for more than four months. At one point he coughed so much he dislocated his rib. ‘I tried everything to make the cough go away,’ says Joanne. ‘Honey in tea, breathing exercises, lots of things. But nothing worked. ‘I didn’t feel healthy again until July.’

Joanne says she believes early diagnosis and treatment could have prevented months of suffering.

‘I’ve since learned that if you treat whooping cough quickly with antibiotics, the worst symptoms can be prevented,’ he says. ‘But the doctors laughed at me and it ruined my life for four months.’

Typically antibiotics are given within the first three weeks after the onset of symptoms to destroy bacteria and prevent the patient from becoming contagious.

By this point the bacteria will usually have been cleared from the body, meaning antibiotics are less likely to improve symptoms.

‘The cough is not the whooping cough itself, but an immune system response to damage caused to the lungs by bacteria,’ says Prof Preston.

‘I’ve seen patients who had whooping cough two years ago and still had a chronic cough.’ Fortunately, there are options.

Physical therapy, in which patients are taught exercises that relax the muscles in the throat, can relieve symptoms.

There are also nerve pain medications, such as a daily tablet called pregabalin, that can help.

Another method being investigated is low doses of morphine (an opioid) to manage symptoms and ensure patients are carefully monitored due to its addictive properties, experts say.

Researchers are now calling on the Government to consider offering vaccines to older adults.

Prof Preston adds: ‘It may not be fatal to adults but that doesn’t mean whooping cough is unimportant.

‘There is a good argument for offering pertussis vaccination later in life; trying to help a lot of people avoid a really debilitating problem.’