Pertussis (whooping cough)

### What you need to know Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is caused by the Gram negative bacterium Bordetella pertussis .1 It is transmitted via airborne droplets and is highly infectious.2 Diagnosis is often delayed or missed,3 as pertussis mimics the presentation of a viral upper respiratory tract infection and can sometimes present atypically.2 In this article, we review the management of pertussis and present recent evidence and guidance on prevention through vaccination. ### Sources and selection criteria We performed a Medline search from January 2007 to December 2018 using the search terms ‘whooping cough’ and ‘pertussis.’ We included journal papers that we encountered from references of the papers from the initial search. We performed a similar search in the Cochrane database. We consulted the Public Health England website and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidelines on pertussis. We have referred to recent systematic reviews, meta-analyses and literature reviews in writing this manuscript but have cited individual clinical studies where there is no higher quality of evidence. Pertussis affects nearly 24 million children under the age of …