Why whooping cough now? Resurgence of pertussis is relative, says expert
Pertussis, or whooping cough, is on the rise as we head into the new school year.
Aug 28, 2024
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Pertussis, or whooping cough, is on the rise as we head into the new school year.
Aug 28, 2024
0
15
Pertussis, also known as the whooping cough, is a highly contagious disease caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It derived its name from the "whoop" sound made from the inspiration of air after a cough. A similar, milder disease is caused by B. parapertussis. Although many medical sources describe the whoop as "high-pitched", this is generally the case with infected babies and children only, not adults.
Despite generally high coverage with the DTP and DTaP vaccines, pertussis is one of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable deaths world-wide. Ninety percent of all cases occur in the Third World. Canada is the only rich, industrial nation in which pertussis is still commonplace, though Australia saw a large increase in cases during a 2008/09 outbreak.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA