Pertussis Or Whooping Cough

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Pertussis or whooping cough, is an acute contagious respiratory tract infection caused by an aerobic gram negative rod, called Bordetella Pertussis. Pertussis was one of the most common childhood disease in the United States. The outbreak of this disease was first noticed in the 16th century. It took another 300 years to isolate the organism and the vaccine for pertussis was developed in the 1940s. There were more than 200,000 cases reported annually, and this was one of the major case of childhood morbidity and mortality, before the availability of vaccination. This disease is still a major problem in different parts of the world, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries.
In the pre-vaccine era, pertussis predominantly affected

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