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Talk:Whooping cough/Archive 1: Difference between revisions

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Archive 1

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ChaKeSeLiAl.

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 July 2019 and 23 August 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ellenberkley, Kim05.rosario, Jhpham, Rxbpherrera. Peer reviewers: Alexuang.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignmentbyPrimeBOT (talk) 12:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I suspected I had pertussis but found it impossible to find audio clips of adults coughing. There are plenty of clips of babies and young children with pertussis on YouTube and elsewhere. Most rely on verbal descriptions of the cough and whoop, which is a shame, as the audio is immediately identifiable. I still don't know if I have whooping cough! Can one of the medical contributors to this page also include some sample audio clips of people at different ages coughing and whooping? Hedley 03:48, 17 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hfinger (talk • contribs)

The article says, "Infection with pertussis induces temporary natural immunity, but like the vaccine does not confer a lasting protective immunity.[13]" Actual duration of both vaccine and natural immunity should be expressed here. According to this journal article, natural immunity lasts form 7-10, to even 20, years in people who acquire Pertussis through infection. The duration of immunity from vaccine is much lower, according to the journal article, at 4 to 12 years. Natural immunity appears stronger than vaccination. Link to journal article: http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Fulltext/2005/05001/Duration_of_Immunity_Against_Pertussis_After.11.aspx

"All About Whooping Cough" http://www.mydr.com.au/default.asp?Article=2340 has some more detail about each stage and a slightly clearer description (easy to understand) of the symptoms at each stage.

I recently heard there was an outbreak of whooping cough in Iowa City sometime in the last year or so. Does anyone have a source on the prevalence of outbreaks in the Western world? -- Wechselstrom 07:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

--I had pertussis towards the middle of 2005, I live in San Diego. The doctor said that there were over 300 cases in San Diego in and 2000 in San Diego. I googled this and found it to be correct: [1] Amplus Quem 17:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed for the past few weeks that I and about half the people I know have a really bad, rattling cough... didn't think much of it until I read this article in the Boston Globe about an an outbreak in a hosptial nearby. Not to say that we've all got pertussis, but it's something to think about. According to the article, "So far this year, 780 cases of whooping cough, known as pertussis, have been reported in Massachusetts, said Donna Rheaume, spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Health." I guess it's not as rare as people think, but I don't have any real statistics on it (aside from that one). -- Dirk Gently 17:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"However, in the fall of 2006, New Trier High School suffered a large pertussis outbreak with thirteen students falling victim to the virus. [1]" - I think this doesn't belong here. For starters, pertussis is not caused by a virus. Also, an outbreak of 13 cases in a high school of 4000 students is not that large. Outbreaks in middle and high schools are not uncommon. I would suggest a more general statement about outbreaks in adolescents or one about outbreaks in intitutions (schools, hospitals, etc). A reference to that outbreak could be used as an example, although a reference from a published scientific article might be more appropriate. Hunterkb 01:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think maybe an outbreak section would be appropriate. Specific outbreaks probably don't belong in the introductory paragraph. Also, I edited the information about New Trier: I couldn't find a source for "some thousand" students vaccinated (the latest article I found said ~200, but it only mentioned the first day). Hunterkb 19:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

These figures need a citation:

• "There are 30–50 million cases per year, and about 300,000 deaths per year"
• " Ninety percent of all cases occur in developing countries"

This statement could use a more precise statistic:

• "Most deaths occur in children under one year of age"

Mystic eye 23:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The statement "30-50 million cases per year" isn't supported by any evidence I can find on the World Health Organization web site. The best I can do is 152,535 reported cases and 294,000 deaths (source here). Also, the uncited statement that "Most deaths occur in young toddlers" doesn't mesh with my understanding of pertussis.

Mmoople (talk) 04:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it says on CDC that infants <6 months are at the highest risk because their vaccinations haven't started yet, but I'm not sure they qualify as young toddlers WillWritesWiki (talk) 15:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

There has just been study in Oxford, United Kingdom, which says that a surprisingly high number of children may be having whooping cough, and if Wikipedia is to retain status for being up-to-date with its articles, this should be mentioned here. The survey is covered in the "Independent" newspaper for July 7, 2006. I shall leave some who is medically qualified and who knows about this survey to add to the article. ACEO 19:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC) According to the article quoted above, children with a cough lasting more than fourteen days were studied in Oxford, United Kingdom, and nearly four in ten were found to be infected with bordetella pertussis. The report also says that more than 85% of this sample caught this infection in spite of vaccination. The report also refers to how research into this recent study has recently been covered in the online edition of the British Medical Journal. ACEO 18:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I would add a link to the above mentioned article: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1164554.ece 70.48.4.35 04:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Here is the reference for the BMJ study : Harnden et al., British Medical Journal, 22 July 06, Vol 33, pp. 174-177. Pertussis infections in the UK children described in this study may simply be a consequence of waning immunity from the pertussis immunizations that the children received as infants. As discussed by the authors of the paper, the UK only recently changed their pertussis immunization policy to include a preschool booster dose. Because the study was initiated before the change in policy, none of the chilren enrolled in the study (ages 5-16) had received a booster shot at age four. Therefore, their last immunization with the pertussis vaccine was at an age of 4 months, which would give immunity to B. pertussis plenty of time to wane until the children reached the age at which they were enrolled in the study. The authors state that the recent policy change may shift the age of pertussis infections in the UK upwards to adolescents, which is what is observed in other countries that already include the preschool booster dose. I'm not able to retrieve the newspaper article mentioned above, but I get the impression that the results of this study is being interpreted by the press as evidence that the pertussis vaccine is no longer effective. However, the authors in the paper clearly state that the results could be a consequence of waning immunity, which is a problem of all pertussis vaccines in use. It appears that the high pertussis infection rates of children presenting with persistent cough is unique to the UK and may disappear as the preschool dose is introduced. Therefore, I feel that this paper does not merit mention in the article, although I won't object if others feel otherwise. NighthawkJ 03:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There used to be a lot of controversy about the safety of whooping cough vaccine. I understand that this has died down now because of a court judgement of some sort (although I don't know whether or not this verdict has been unanimously accepted), but the controversy should still be included here at least as an important historical phenomenon. Ireneshusband 18:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The controversy was about the whole-cell DTP vaccines which aren't used any more. Those vaccines were associated with high rates of neurologic complications. The US now uses an acellular vaccine that is much safer. A lot of people aren't aware of that and I agree that controversy should be in the vaccine section. I'm not 100% sure of the details of the court case, but I know the lawsuit(s) brought about the creation of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (that may not be the correct name); it awards compensation to children who have an adverse event after vaccination regardless of the cause of the event (there are a lot of criteria obviously). Parents don't have to accept but if they do they can't sue the manufacturer; I think they may be still some controversy over that part. Hunterkb 19:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I started a section that describes the DTP controversy. Please check for NPOV. NighthawkJ 03:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a medical expert by any stretch but the sentence "There is newly emerging evidence that some strains of the bacteria that cause pertussis have become resistant to the acellular version of the vaccine which is leading to a rise in the incidence of whooping cough in the wealthy countries that use it." does not make sense to me. A bacteria can not become resistant to a vaccine because the vaccine does not kill the bacteria. Vaccines prime the immune system to make antibodies that can fight the infection. 150.101.221.225 (talk) 12:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Its clearly not a case of Drug resistance but the more mundane progression of mutation- new strains almost by definition, have genetic differences and different response to vaccines. If the acellular vaccines are still based on old variants of the Pertussis bacteria, eventually they will have to be updated or they will become ineffective. This is the case for all vaccines for diseases "in the wild" with widespread distribution. Hint: influenza virus doesn't develop new drug resistance every year, but there are new vaccines every year because the virus is spread so widely that it has substantial (minor) genetic drift from season to season. --Raduga (talk) 17:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

This article does not do justice to the characteristic "paroxysms" of Whooping that give this disease it's name. The whooping noise is made totally involuntarily by the patient, who is gasping for breath in the middle of an uncontrollable coughing fit. There is nothing minor or cute about this experience; something goes wrong in the throat, making it impossible to breathe. It feels like you are going to choke to death, literally die from lack of air. This is a very serious disease. Since this is a central feature, it would be good if the article stated whether you can indeed die from this, or if it just seems like you might. And at least a link to some resources that would explain what is going wrong with your breathing, associated with the whoop. Doctors in the US today don't seem to know much about this disease, and it is officially hard to test for. But if you have had it, as an adult, you know that you have had a serious, seemingly life-threatening experience. If there are truly other diseases that are associated with the same Whooping symptoms, they should be specifically mentioned and linked to in this article. 69.87.200.105 12:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't help it...it's nice to know I'm not alone in this. Thank you so much. Whooping cough fits are scary and violet and LOUD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.3.23 (talk) 08:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

A recording of this sound would definitely add to this article. Cburnett 15:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added a video from the website of the US Center for Disease Control illustrating the sound and removed the {{Audio requested}} template. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 22:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I removed the obvious rubbish "The Aztec Indians used rum in large quantities to ward off the cough". Distillation was unknown in the New World before contact with Europeans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnwcowan (talk • contribs) 18:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that this is "rubbish". Is it not possible that the Aztecs got rum through trade, prior to the Conquista? Is it also not possible that the Aztecs after the conquest may not have had access to rum and used it? The Aztecs didn't just vanish, when their empire was conquered. I'm not saying that the reference is correct; I just find dismissing the idea as "obvious rubbish" as unscholarly. Best regardsTheBaron0530 (talk) 13:54, 13 January 2017 (UTC)theBaron0530

What "trade before the Conquista?" The Aztec empire did not trade with Europe. 2.28.151.150 (talk) 13:56, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Article is largely focussed on the USA.
BBC article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7288459.stm may be of general interest and may provide some non-USA content. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 21:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Why not add some of this material to the article? Questioningly, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Removed the fact that the DTaP vacine was introduced in the US in 1991 and changed it to reflect that the vaccine was developed in Japan in 1981. If there is a requirement to show the adoption rate of DTaP internationally a tabular format of County Vaccine introduction date would be more appropriate.

It has been claimed that Dr Denmark was a co-developer of the pertussis vaccine. Anyone have more information on this?Ryoung122 23:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

According to the introduction in this article, the mortality rate of untreated pertussis cases is 90%. Can someone please correct this obvious mistake? A mortality rate of 90% is unheard of. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethuroff (talk • contribs) 20:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Does Pertussis affect people who have never been vaccinated more serious than people who only had their immunization wearing off? Or do those mortality rates only cover non vaccinated infants? 62.47.233.64 (talk) 11:22, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

A wearing-off immunisation still offers partial protection (although, having had a "mild" case under these circumstances at age 4 I can attest it is still terrifying). Infants would be more susceptible to the complications, which would be the immediate cause of death. Many occur in ones too young to have received all (or any) of their first series of vaccinations, so they would not be "mild" cases. If I find reliable figures on this I'll add them.

We are also still short of figures for other countries. KoolerStill (talk) 10:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The claim that Canada is the only wealthy nation with a high incidence is plain wrong. The also-mentioned Australia has had a higher number of reported cases over many years, for a 50% smaller population....and is currently having an epidemic, with more cases reported this year to date than Canada's total cases last year. While official figures only give TOTALS, to make the statistics meaningful they must be calculated to X per 100,000 of population (even is this is done as "original work" by the editor). The WHO figures are in a not very accessible format, but are available to 2007. I will try to unscramble them and add figures for other parts of the world.KoolerStill (talk) 21:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I can add to this that the Dutch article mentions a couple of thousand diagnosed infections every year in the Netherlands. Also, it says that the real number of infections is undoubtedly much greater; antibody research shows that 1-4 % of the population (!) has an infection of bordetella pertussis per year. Seems exagerated to me, but that's what is says and a source is given (though I have no access to it, so I can't verify). Dex Stewart (talk) 21:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Also the statement about 7,000 cases in canada per year cites an article that only mentions the slightly odd statistic "About 2,000 to 10,000 cases a year have been reported in Canada over the last 10 years" How did up to 10,000 in TEN years become 7,000 EACH year?

As per an article in today's (Australian) Daily Telegraph, the NSW Department of Health believes that the actual number of child pertussis cases in this state is significantly under-reported in the areas in which there are large numbers of anti-vaxxers. The thought is that when the children get pertussis, it is not reported, because such parents are more likely to seek "alternative" medicine practitioners (instead of real doctors), who are less likely to report it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.218.57.4 (talk) 12:00, 7 May 2017 (UTC)