Paediatric Pulmonology and Allergology

2003 October, Vol. VI, No. 2 (pp.2283-2289)

Current Aspects of Pertussis

Ema Kavoliunaite, Irena Narkeviciute

The ar­tic­le re­views cur­rent as­pects of epi­de­mio­lo­gi­cal, cli­ni­cal, diag­nos­tic da­ta and fu­tu­re pre­ven­tion pro­spects of the per­tus­sis. Du­ring last two de­ca­des, des­pi­te high vac­ci­ne co­ve­ra­ge of in­fants and chil­dren, the­re is a sig­ni­fi­cant inc­re­a­se of per­tus­sis ca­ses in ado­les­cent, adult, and non-vac­ci­na­ted in­fants in ma­ny Eu­ro­pe coun­tries, Uni­ted Sta­tes and Aust­ra­lia. The mor­bi­di­ty of per­tus­sis in Lit­hu­a­nia in fact is hig­her than is re­gis­te­red of­fi­cia­ly. Ado­les­cent and adult are the main sour­ces of Bor­de­tel­la per­tus­sis in­fec­tion for non-vac­ci­na­ted or not ful­ly vac­ci­na­ted in­fants. Pre­vio­us­ly vac­ci­na­ted, inc­lu­ding adult, ge­ne­ra­ly ha­ve mild il­lness, fre­qu­ent­ly ty­pi­cal per­tus­sis symp­toms. For con­fir­ma­tion of per­tus­sis diag­no­sis a com­bi­na­tion of PCR and se­ro­lo­gy (ELISA) is re­com­men­ded. In most coun­tries per­tus­sis vac­ci­ne is gi­ven fi­ve ti­mes and in Lit­hu­a­nia it still re­mains four ti­mes. Now the dis­cu­sion is going on about ado­les­cent and adult vac­ci­na­tion against per­tus­sis.

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