Whooping cough diagnosed in Hill County

Pertussis — better known as whooping cough — has swept across the state, with health departments diagnosing almost 12 times as many cases as last year at this time, and two cases have been diagnosed in Hill County by the end of last week, Hill County Health Department Kim Larson said.

“Right now, Montana has 442 cases of pertussis this year,” she said. “At the same time last year we only had 37 in the state of Montana, so there is a big increase this year.”

Pertussis is not a curable disease. People can take treatments to help prevent becoming ill. It is treatable with prophy...