Fatal Case of Pertussis in an Infant

In December 2004, a 29-day-old infant in West Virginia (USA) died from pneumonia and respiratory failure, complications of pertussis or whooping cough. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes pertussis as a highly communicable disease that is transmitted from patients to close contacts by respiratory droplets. Several weeks before the infant's birth, her mother and maternal grandmother had developed prolonged paroxysmal (second stage) cough with posttussive vomiting (vomiting at the end of a cough).

The CDC reports that, during the period 1996-2004, 35.1% of pertussis patients were 6 months of age or younger. Infants this age are particularly vulnerable to the disease because they are too young to have received the 3-dose primary series of pertussis vaccine. Pertussis can be severe in nonimmunised infants.

The case report examining this infant's course of illness is based on information from a medical school, hospital, and local and state public health agencies in West Virginia. The following excerpt offers salient findings for health communicators:

"This case underscores the need to protect infants from pertussis transmission. The healthcare community can limit the spread of pertussis by (1) educating caretakers and the public about preventing exposure of infants to any person with a cough illness, (2) educating healthcare providers to consider pertussis in adolescents and adults with a cough illness and to ask these patients to wear a mask or isolate themselves from other patients, and (3) encouraging confirmation of pertussis by culture of nasopharyngeal secretions."