Nearly a century after a pertussis vaccine became available, the disease appears to be rebounding in adolescents and adults, a variety of studies shows. This trend could explain the increase in mortality among infants, who are infected through contact with family members and other caretakers.
Rarely fatal after the age of 2 years, pertussis can cause vomiting and “a cough that most adolescents or adults say they will never forget,” says Carl-Heinz Wirsing von König of the hospital Klinikum Krefeld in Krefeld, Germany.
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