by PediaBlog | Dec 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
Just because we have safe and effective immunizations for vaccine-preventable illnesses doesn’t mean that these vicious bacteria and viruses disappear. Julie Watson considers pertussis: A total of 9,935 cases were reported to the California Department of Public...
by PediaBlog | Jul 1, 2014 | Uncategorized
Last week we investigated the emergence of chikungunya in the Caribbean. This week, Thomas Carannante has a travel advisory for a slightly less exotic locale: On Friday, the California Health Department declared pertussis, also known as whooping cough, a problem of...
by PediaBlog | Feb 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
There is a new explanation of why we are seeing more cases of pertussis (whooping cough) in spite of high immunization rates among children: the vaccine does not appear to be very effective against a new strain that was initially isolated in Japan, Finland, and...
by PediaBlog | Nov 13, 2012 | Uncategorized
Actually, it never really left. The United States is in the midst of the worst epidemic of pertussis, or whooping cough, in more than 50 years, and Allegheny County is mirroring the national trend. Nationwide, the outbreak is startling: 32,000 cases reported as of...
by PediaBlog | Aug 22, 2012 | Uncategorized
From this week’s New England Journal of Medicine: So what are the causes of today’s high prevalence of pertussis? First, the timing of the initial resurgence of reported cases (see graph) suggests that the main reason for it was actually increased...
