The Control of Pertussis — 2007 and Beyond

November 2, 2006: the Boston Globe reports an outbreak of whooping cough affecting one patient and 15 staff members at Boston Children's Hospital; 60 other staff members have respiratory symptoms and are being tested for pertussis.1 At Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, more than 4500 hospital employees are given acellular pertussis vaccine in response to cases of pertussis among health care workers during the spring of 2006.2 In Texas in 2005, more than 2000 cases of pertussis are reported, and nine patients die, eight of them infants. In 2003, more than 1900 cases of pertussis are reported in . . .