DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A big jump in whooping cough cases is cited in a state of Iowa report on diseases. The Iowa Department of Public Health says its 2010 Iowa Surveillance of Notifiable and Other Diseases Report covers the more than 60,000 reports of infectious disease that were submitted to state disease surveillance programs.

The state says the number of vaccine-preventable diseases dropped compared to a three-year average. But the state says mumps and pertussis cases increased: 73 percent for mumps and 229 percent for whooping cough. The health department director, Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, says there were 705 reported cases of whooping cough reported last year.

She says most adults haven’t had a vaccination since childhood, so they probably have little or no immunity left to whooping cough, which also is called pertussis.