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Sept. 2

— NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite widespread vaccination, there appears to be a high incidence of whooping cough among adults seeking treatment for persistent cough in one French region, researchers have found.

Vaccination against whooping cough, or pertussis, was introduced in 1959 in France. And, as in other developed countries, there has been a high degree of vaccine coverage for years.

However, the authors of the new study point out, France has seen a resurgence in whooping cough cases in the past decade. But while the respiratory infection has traditionally been passed from child to child, the recent upswing in cases has been marked by parent-to-infant transmission--suggesting that adults' waning immunity from childhood vaccination is to blame.

Whooping cough starts out with cold-like symptoms such as runny nose and sneezing, followed by a lingering period of persistent cough. In children, severe coughing spells can cause breathing difficulty, vomiting and tiny red spots on the skin due to ruptured blood vessels near the skin's surface.

Because teens and adults may have milder symptoms, whooping cough is likely to be mistaken for other respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis.

To see how prevalent whooping cough may be among adults, Dr. Nicole Guiso, of the Unite des Bordetella in Paris, and her colleagues looked at patients in the Paris area who visited their doctors for persistent cough.

Over the 9-month study, 217 such patients were identified, and 70 (32%) were confirmed as having whooping cough, according to findings published in the August issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

What's more, 60% of these patients reported having had childhood vaccination against whooping cough, while one-third said they'd had the illness as babies.

In France, the increase in whooping cough during the 1990s led health authorities to introduce in 1998 a booster vaccination for children 11 to 13 years old.

According to the authors of the new study, their findings suggest that an adult booster shot for whooping cough may both prevent cases among adults and cut the risk of transmission to infants.

SOURCE: The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2002;186:415-418.

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