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June 7, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Whooping Cough Vaccine Cuts Infection in Senegal"

Reuters Health Information Services (www.reutershealth.com)

(06/05/02)

A report in the June issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology highlights the effectiveness of the pertussis vaccine in reduce whooping cough deaths and infections in developing countries.  Between 1984 and 1996, Dr. Marie-Pierre Preziosi of Emory University in Atlanta, and colleagues studied a rural Senegal community, where, prior to vaccination, 183 per 1,000 children under the age of five contracted whooping cough every year and 2.8 percent died.  During the study, about 42 percent of the estimated 32,000 children in the region received at least one dose of pertussis vaccine and 29 percent received all three doses, raising the rate of infant vaccine compliance from 13 percent in 1986 to 72 percent in 1990; the rate has increased to over 80 percent since then.  The researchers found that following the introduction of the vaccination program, overall incidence of whooping cough decreased by 27 percent after three years and 46 percent after six years.

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