A KENDAL mum who was forced to ‘isolate’ herself due to whooping cough wants to raise awareness that the illness does not just affect babies.

Kerry Davies, 41, and her 10-year-old son Ethan have only just been diagnosed with the highly contagious bacterial infection of the lungs and airways.

However, they both began to develop a cough towards the start of June and suffered with symptoms for weeks before tests for the illness were taken.

“It became so bad that I couldn’t work,” Kerry explained. “We were up all night choking, coughing, gasping to the point where the cough would give us pain in our heads. It’s so intense. I have isolated myself for eight weeks because I choke on food and I can’t set off one of these coughs when anybody is there. It’s just so isolating.”

According to statistics from Public Health England, between January to March 2018 there were 644 laboratory confirmed cases of pertussis or whooping cough.

Total cases were 28 per cent lower than those reported in the same quarter of 2017 and 49 per cent lower than the 1,264 cases reported in the first quarter of 2016.

In the first quarter of 2018, the greatest number of laboratory confirmed cases in England continues in individuals aged 15 years and over although the highest disease incidence persists in infants aged below three months.

Kerry believes that if more people knew that older people could be affected by the illness and more tests for it were taken, the figures for older children and adults would rise.

Now that both she and her son have been officially diagnosed, she wants to raise awareness so that others feel ‘empowered’ to ask to be tested.

“I just want to take a negative and try to make it into a positive because it’s been the worst thing that I could ever explain to you,” she said.

Kerry said that she is sure there are people in the community and some of her family members with long term coughs that may have whooping cough. However, she thinks that due to the ‘preconceived’ idea that it is only an illness that children and babies are afflicted with, they are not being diagnosed.

“I just want to put this horrific time that me and my son have had to say that whooping cough is out there for adults and older children. Not every cough sounds the same. Mine is the traditional whooping sound but my son’s is not. I just don’t think the public out there realise that we should be asking for tests if we have a cough that goes on.”

Mark McGivern, consultant in health protection at Public Health England North West, said: “Whooping cough affects all ages. For very young children and pregnant women, it can cause more severe complications.

“The best way to prevent whooping cough is for eligible people to get the vaccine when offered – this includes pregnant women to protect babies during the first few weeks of birth and young babies when they become eligible at 8, 12 and 16 weeks old.

“Coverage of the vaccine in babies is very high, with more than 95 per cent of babies at 12 and 24 months being covered.”