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September 4, 2002
INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Whooping Cough May Be Common in French Adults"
Reuters Health Information Services (www.reutershealth.com)
(09/02/02)
According to a report in the August issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Nicole Guiso and colleagues of the Unite des Bordetella in Paris studied 217 patients who visited their doctors for persistent cough and found that 32 percent were confirmed as having whooping cough. Sixty percent of the patients diagnosed with whooping cough during the nine-month study reported having been immunized against the disease as children, and one-third reported having had the disease while very young. In 1998, spurred by an increase in whooping cough over the decade, French health officials added a booster vaccination for children 11 to 13 years old. However, in their new study, Guiso et al. suggest that an adult booster shot may prevent whooping cough infection among adults and may reduce the chance of transmitting it to infants as well.
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