Do Many People Contract Pertussis?
Pertussis occurs throughout the world in all age groups. In the early twentieth century, it was a common childhood disease and a leading cause of infant death. Since the widespread use of a vaccine * starting in the mid-1940s, however, infection rates in children in the United States have declined. Teens and adults account for the majority of infections in the twenty-first century, which may indicate that childhood immunization with the vaccine does not offer lifelong immunity * . Before the introduction of the vaccine, more than 200,000 cases of pertussis were diagnosed each year in the United States. Since the 1980s, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported yearly U.S. averages ranging from about 3,000 to 8,000 cases. In many developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, however, pertussis is still a major cause of childhood deaths; the CDC attributes 300,000 deaths worldwide every year to the disease.
