Pertussis overview

Overview
Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, a highly contagious disease caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis; it derived its name from a characteristic severe hacking cough followed by a high-pitched intake of breath that sounds like "whoop"; a similar, milder disease is caused by B. parapertussis. Worldwide, there are 30–50 million pertussis cases and about 300,000 deaths per year. Despite generally high coverage with the DTP and DTaP vaccines, pertussis is one of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable deaths world-wide. Most deaths occur in young infants who are either unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated; three doses of the vaccine are necessary for complete protection against pertussis. Ninety percent of all cases occur in the developing world. However, in the winter of 2006, a New York school district suffered a large pertussis outbreak with thirteen plus students falling victim to the infection. Also in the fall of 2006, a pertussis outbreak struck New Trier High School, a public school in Winnetka, Illinois, with twenty-four high school students catching the disease. In response, the Cook County Department of Public Health provided vaccine, free of charge, to eligible students.