Infants acquire pertussis from family members

NEW YORK, May 2 (Reuters) Family members are responsible for more than three quarters of pertussis cases transmitted to infants, according to a new report.

In the United States, the incidence of infant pertussis, or whooping cough, has tripled in the past two decades despite widespread vaccination coverage, leading the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to recommend that all adolescents and adults receive a pertussis booster shot.

To get a better handle on precisely how infants are catching pertussis, Dr Annelies Van Rie from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and associates collected comprehensive data on close contacts of a group of infants with laboratory-confirmed pertussis.

Rie and colleagues say they found ''robust evidence'' that household members are responsible for 73 per cent to 82 per cent of whooping cough transmission to infants for whom a source case could be identified ''and for 39 percent of transmission to all infants with pertussis in this study.'' ''It is therefore likely that the implementation of the recent ACIP recommendation for adult and adolescent vaccination could substantially reduce the burden of infant pertussis, if high coverage rates among those in contact with young infants can be achieved.'' Parents were the most common source of pertussis infection, followed by siblings, aunts and uncles, friends and cousins, grandparents, and part-time caretakers.

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