Whooping cough a.k.a(also known as) Pertussis is a highly contagious disease. Whooping cough is one of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable deaths. There are 30 to 50 million cases of Pertussis per year. Of these millions of cases there is about three hundred thousand deaths each year.
Whooping Cough is spread by contact with an airborne discharge from the mucous membranes of an infected person. The disease is treated with antibiotics like erythromycin, azithromycin and clarithromycin. These antibiotics result in the person becoming less infectious but in the majority of cases does not change the outcome of the disease. Immunizations for whooping cough are often combined and given with tetanus and diphtheria immunizations. These immunizations are given to infants at ages 2, 4, and 6 months, and later at 15 to 18 months and 4 to 6 years. Many cases of Whooping cough in adults will go unnoticed and diagnosed due to the fact that it is much less severe.
