FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS
Whooping Cough (pertussis)
Why you should vaccinate adults against whooping cough
- Nearly one-third of whooping cough cases in U.S. infants were transmitted from mother to child.
- Young infants are at the greatest risk of serious complications, including death, from pertussis.
- Among cases of pertussis reported to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) between 2001 and 2003, nearly one quarter (23 percent) were in those aged 20 and older.
- CDC estimates that there are between one and three million pertussis cases in the U.S. annually.
