Two infants died of pertussis or whooping cough within the last six months, according to the Kentucky Department for Public Health.

Those are the first deaths related to whooping cough in Kentucky since 2018.

So why the increase in cases?

A look more and tonight's medical news.

We know that pertussis can be very severe in young infants.

About a third of young infants.

So those less than a year of age, when they get pertussis, they get hospitalized.

And younger infants are at risk for severe complications of pertussis, including pneumonia and seizures.

Cases of pertussis have really skyrocketed.

In Kentucky.

So nationwide.

So if we just look at pertussis cases last year in the U.S., there were more than 35,000 cases of pertussis.

That's a lot.

According to the Kentucky Department for Public Health, we had, I think, 543 cases of pertussis in Kentucky.

Public health experts think there are several reasons that the cases are going up.

One is that immunization rates are falling.

You know, we talked about vaccinations and, pertussis is a vaccine preventable disease.

But immunization rates are down.

And so that certainly contributes to increased cases.

Pertussis vaccine is good.

But immune doesn't last forever.

Immunity wanes over time.

And so as you get further out from your vaccine, your protection declines.

And that can also contribute to increased cases.

The other thing is that the vaccine isn't perfect.

It can prevent some of the most severe complications of pertussis.

It might not prevent.

Well, we know it doesn't prevent every mild case.

And so people with mild pertussis can spread the disease.

One way we protect young infants against hopping cough is to give their mothers pertussis vaccine during pregnancy.

And the mom makes antibodies that cross the placenta and will protect the young infant.

What we know from the press release that CdPH released last week is that the infants who died had not been immunized against pertussis.

And it sounds like their mothers had not been immunized against pertussis yet.

Doctor Bryant also encourages adults to get the Tdap shot, which covers tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.

If they're around infants.