What is Whooping Cough or Pertussis?

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a disease caused by infection with the bacteria known as bordetella pertussis. The disease begins with a mild cough, accompanied by a runny nose and frequent sneezing. Over time, the cough becomes worse – the patient experiences fits of coughing, and each cough is followed by a gasp for breath, which causes the typical “whoop” sound that gives the disease its name. The coughing fits are usually very severe and occur throughout the day. They do however seem to be triggered by consumption of food in many cases, and the severe coughing usually results in the patient throwing up the food. As a result, whooping cough often results in the patient becoming weak and malnourished.

Many people tend to wrongly associate whooping cough with asthma. This is usually manifested in the mistaken idea that whooping cough causes you to develop asthma. However, no such cause and effect link has been found between whooping cough and asthma. The two conditions do seem to go together very often, but this seems to be more due to the fact that people with asthma are particularly susceptible to this disease. It is therefore sometimes recommended that children with asthma, or even with a family history of asthma, should be vaccinated and given booster shots till they reach adulthood. In many places however, vaccination against whooping cough is standard for all children, and is given along with the vaccinations for tetanus, polio, and other diseases.

When whooping cough affects newborn children, there is a rather high chance of it becoming severe, and even fatal. Fatal cases are not many, but there are enough to be a cause for concern. Whooping cough is highly infectious, and for these reasons, it is important that people who have the disease and even people who may have the disease should stay away from very young children. In severe cases, whooping cough can eventually lead to pneumonia, seizures, and pulmonary hypertension. The latter is the most common cause of death due to whooping cough in infants.

In spite of this, whooping cough is not usually a very dangerous disease in adults. Even though it may take several weeks (up to 10 weeks) for the patient to recover, there is usually no need for aggressive medication. Antibiotics are usually prescribed so as to shorten the infectious period of the disease, but apart from this, standard measures, such as rest and plenty of fluids are adequate.