Infant Pertussis and Household Transmission in Korea

Kwon, Hyo Jin; Yum, Sook Kyung; Choi, Ui Yoon; Lee, Soo Young; Kim, Jong Hyun; Kang, Jin Han

Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is an acute respiratory tract infection caused by Bordetella pertussis. Although the incidence rate of pertussis has significantly decreased following the wide use of pertussis vaccine, B. pertussis infection is continuously occurring as a small outbreak even in several developed countries with high vaccination coverage (1) (2) (3) (4) . There has been the resurgence of reported pertussis cases primarily in infants younger than 1 yr old, especially less than 3 months of age, in adolescents and young adults worldwide (5, 6) . The possible causes of increased incidence in adolescents and adults include waning of vaccine immunity, adaptation of circulating B. pertussis strains, development of diagnostic methods, and active surveillance due to increased awareness of pertussis (7) (8) (9) . Household contact with infected adolescents and adults also becomes the major source of pertussis infection in infants who are not fully immunized, and this problematic circulation may consequently threaten overall public health (10, 11) .