Get the facts on whooping cough (pertussis) symptoms (whoop sound), causes (Bordetella pertussis), treatment, vaccine (DTaP, Tdap), and transmission.
Before the vaccine was created, whooping cough was thought to be a childhood disease. Anyone can get whooping cough, but it generally happens more often in infants, children, and older children. Infants younger than 2 months of age, who are too young to receive the vaccine, are especially ...
A bacterium known as Bordetella pertussis causes "whooping cough". The name refers to the whooping sound made upon breathing in during a prolonged coughing spell. This vaccine-preventable illness can be life-threatening to young children and even the elderly. In its early stages, it looks like ...
(GPI).If inoculation during pregnancy isn't feasible, the next best option is vaccinating immediate family members, caregivers and other people who regularly come in close contact with infants, according to the GPI, a group of scientists focused on eradicating whooping cough."Pertussis infection in...
Young babies are particularly vulnerable to whooping cough because they cannot be vaccinated against the disease until they are 2 months old. However, there are still ways to protect infants from whooping cough, discussed in the "whooping cough vaccine" section below. Parents should also keep infan...
their immune systems still developing, but young babies cannot start receiving their whooping cough vaccinations until they’re 2 months old. Until then, they only have their mother’s antibodies to project them. (This, of course, is only if mom got her whooping cough vaccine during pregnancy....
more than 3 times greater in children who had received the preschool pertussis booster vaccination 7 or more years ago compared with those who had received the booster shot less than 7 years ago. Pertussis risk was similar among children who received 5 and 3 courses of the booster vaccine. ...
Why whooping cough infections are on the rise Many years ago, there were a lot of cases of whooping cough each year in the U.S. However, after a vaccine for pertussis was developed, that number dropped. During the COVID pandemic, most of us were taking steps to lower the spread of in...
Is there a vaccine for whooping cough? Whooping Cough: Whooping cough is a respiratory tract infection that leads to a severe cough. Some of the symptoms of whooping cough are runny nose, nasal congestion, watery eyes, fever, redness in the eyes, fatigue, vomiting...
The older vaccine for whooping cough was phased out in the late 1990s. It carried a high risk of serious but temporary side effects like pain and swelling at the site of injection, as well as serious complications such as febrile convulsions, which are fits or seizures caused by a sudden ...