LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Pertussis: Cases
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Pertussis... known as whooping cough, is a highly contagious bacterial illness that causes a cough lasting several weeks. In 1995, 36 confirmed cases were reported among New York City residents, a case rate of .5 per 100,000 people.
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Following the confirmed diagnosis of pertussis in the three-week-old baby above, the unimmunised mother was treated as a ‘vulnerable contact’ and provided with oral Erythromycin prophylaxis for 10 days. Her husband, who was fully immunised, had symptoms of a non-specific cough at the time and tested negative for B. pertussis. The index case presented to her GP with information that her three-week-old niece had been diagnosed with whooping cough. A blood sample was sent for pertussis PCR and she was commenced on a 10-day course of oral Erythromycin. However, the result of the blood test did not confirm the diagnosis. The negative result could have been due to the delay of over two months between the onset of symptoms and testing.
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Wide-scale inoculation against pertussis began nearly five decades ago in Great Britain and other industrialized countries. Since that time, pertussis vaccination has been at the center of controversy both in terms of efficacy and its association with complications of the central nervous system. This review will be limited to consideration of the association of pertussis vaccination with serious neurologic complications as documented in early case series through Kulenkampff (1974), with an exploration of the subsequent public outcry and pertussis epidemic in Great Britain in the late 1970s.
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Today, Public Health said that a case of pertussis in a health care worker has been confirmed at its Northshore Public Health Center (10808 N.E. 145th Street in Bothell). Public Health is currently investigating the situation, and is contacting all persons who came into contact with the health care worker. In order to limit the spread of the illness, Public Health is treating all staff who may have come in contact with the affected worker. In addition, a physician's advisory will be sent to area physicians.
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North Carolina is seeing an increase in the number of pertussis (whooping cough) cases each year. Whooping cough is a highly contagious and vaccine-preventable disease that can be passed easily from person to person. This increase is not unique to North Carolina. The number of whooping cough cases in all age groups is rising across the country at a rate of great concern to the medical and public health communities.
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By the late 1970s, publicity about adverse reactions and deaths following pertussis vaccination caused the immunization rate to fall in several countries, including Great Britain, Sweden, and Japan. In many cases, a dramatic increase in the incidence of pertussis followed.[11] These developments led Yuji Sato to introduce a safer acellular version of the pertussis vaccine for Japan in 1981. Nevertheless, other countries continued to use the whole-cell DTP formulation.
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