Another estimated 195,000 child deaths yearly from the disease worldwide. This is despite generally high coverage with the DTP and DTaP vaccines. Pertussis is one of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable deaths worldwide. About 90% of all cases occur in developing countries.Before vaccines, an average of 178,171 cases was reported in the U.S., with peaks reported every two to five years; more than 93% of reported cases occurred in children under 10 years of age. The actual incidence was likely much higher. After vaccinations were introduced in the 1940s, pertussis incidence fell dramatically to approximately 1,000 by 1976. Incidence rates have increased since 1980. In 2015, 20,762 people were reported to have been infected in the United States.Pertussis is the only vaccine-preventable disease that is associated with increasing deaths in the U.S. The number of deaths increased from four in 1996 to 17 in 2001, almost all of which were infants under one year. In Canada, the number of pertussis infections has varied between 2,000 and 10,000 reported cases each year over the last ten years, and it is the most common vaccine-preventable illness in Toronto.In 2009 Australia reported an average of 10,000 cases a year, and the number of cases had increased. In the U.S. pertussis in adults has increased significantly since about 2004.In 2017, India had a reported 23,766 reported pertussis cases, making it one of the highest reported number of cases of the year.
Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) may be used in those with allergies to first-line agents or in infants who have a risk of pyloric stenosis from macrolides.A reasonable guideline is to treat people age >1 year within 3 weeks of cough onset and infants age <1 year and pregnant women within 6 weeks of cough onset. If the person is diagnosed late, antibiotics will not alter the course of the illness, and even without antibiotics, they should no longer be spreading pertussis. When used early, antibiotics decrease the duration of infectiousness, and thus prevent spread. Short-term antibiotics (azithromycin for 3–5 days) are as effective as long-term treatment (erythromycin 10–14 days) in eliminating B. pertussis with fewer and less severe side effects.People with pertussis are most infectious during the first two weeks following the onset of symptoms.Effective treatments of the cough associated with this condition have not been developed. The use of over the counter cough medications is discouraged and has not been found helpful. Prognosis
While most healthy older children and adults fully recover, infection in newborns is particularly severe. Pertussis is fatal in an estimated 0.5% of US infants under one year of age. First-year infants are also more likely to develop complications, such as: apneas (31%), pneumonia (12%), seizures (0.6%) and encephalopathy (0.15%). This may be due to the ability of the bacterium to suppress the immune system. Epidemiology
Worldwide, whooping cough affects around 16 million people yearly. One estimate for 2013 stated it resulted in about 61,000 deaths – down from 138,000 deaths in 1990.