Pertussis

Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is a disease that affects about 300,000 people in the US every year, out of 30–50 million cases per year. There were 92,407 cases of whooping cough in England and Wales in 1957. In 2022,after the success of the vaccination programme there were 3,506.

There is a vaccine that can prevent it, so most cases of it are in places where people cannot afford, cannot get, or refuse to get the vaccine. However, this vaccine does not work forever. The disease lasts about 6 weeks, and symptoms include vomiting, violent coughing, and other flu-like symptoms. It is called whooping cough for the sound an infected person makes when they cough.

The disease usually infects younger people, as they are more prone to diseases. l

Pertussis Media

• A video of a boy with pertussis (whooping cough), demonstrating the cough's distinctive "whoop" sound.

• 

  Gram stain of Bordetella pertussis

• 

  Whooping cough deaths per million persons in 2019*

  *     0.00 - 1.49*     1.50 - 2.99*     3.00 - 5.99*     6.00 - 9.99*     10.00 - 19.99*     20.00 - 39.99*     40.00 - 59.99*     60.00 - 99.99*     100+*
• 

  An epidemiologist tests blood samples for pertussis during a 2010 outbreak.

Other websites

• Pertussis: new insights in diagnosis, incidence and clinical manifestations, F.G.A. Versteegh, Thesis, 2005