WHOOPING-COUGH: DIFFICULTIES IN DIAGNOSIS AND INEFFECTIVENESS OF IMMUNIZATION
| Autor: | A. T. Wilson, S. N. Heywood, I. R. Henderson, E. J. H. Moore |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1965 |
| Předmět: |
medicine.medical_specialty
Bordetella pertussis Epidemiology Whooping Cough Diagnosis Differential medicine Humans Child Whooping cough General Environmental Science Pertussis Vaccine biology business.industry Vaccination General Engineering General Medicine Papers and Originals biology.organism_classification medicine.disease Immunization Cough England Family medicine Immunology General Earth and Planetary Sciences Pertussis vaccine Rural area Suspect business medicine.drug |
| Zdroj: | British medical journal. 2(5462) |
| ISSN: | 0007-1447 |
| Popis: | In 1964, in general practice in Peeblesshire, we found that a type of paroxysmal cough had spread widely among the older children at one village school before a diagnosis of whooping cough was made. Very few of the children were seen by their doctors in the earliest phase of this epidemic. Those affected were in the 8 to 12 age group and had not been immunized against pertussis. In the children below the age of 8 years pertussis immuniza tion was at this time believed by us to be virtually complete. (We subsequently discovered that 7 children out of 108 in this age group had had no immunization whatever against pertussis.) Because of this high immunization rate and because of the large proportion of older children already showing symptoms, the medical officer of health permitted cases and suspect cases to continue attending school unless the severity of their illness made it necessary for them to be absent. When one or two of the immunized children developed similar coughs we saw an opportunity to study the effectiveness of the protection given by immunization. We therefore charted the subsequent spread of the infection through the families of the village. Advantage was taken of the fact that at this particular time a trainee assistant was attached to each of the two practices which provided medical services for this village. The object of the study was to find out if the immunization which the family doctors had given prevented attacks of pertussis and limited its spread. Subsidiary objects were to act as a training exercise in the planning of research in general practice for the benefit of the trainee assistants and to assess the diagnostic value of pernasal swabs, since it was necessary to confirm that the causal organism was Bordetella pertussis. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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