ABSTRACT
Objective:
Describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of patients under 2 years of age hospitalized with whooping cough in a tertiary care children's hospital in Peru.
Methods:
This was a case series of patients under 2 years of age who were hospitalized with a diagnosis of whooping cough in 2012.
Results:
A total of 121 patients were hospitalized. Diagnostic testing (direct immunofluorescence, polymerase chain reaction, culture) was carried out in 53.72% of patients. Overall, 23.15% (n = 28) were confirmed cases, all of whom were patients less than 10 months old, and none of whom had received 3 doses of whooping cough vaccine. A total of 96.43% (n = 27) of cases were under 6 months of age, 42.86% (n = 12) were younger than 3 months, and 10.71% (n = 3) were admitted to the intensive care unit. Of these cases, all were younger than 2 months old, and one patient died. The most common symptoms in the confirmed cases were coughing (96.43%), facial redness (96.43%), paroxysmal coughing (92.86%), and coughing-related cyanosis (78.57%). The most frequent probable epidemiological contact was the mother (17.86%), and the majority of cases occurred in the summer (46.43%).
Conclusion:
Whooping cough is a cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in those younger than 6 months of age and in those who are not immunized or only partially immunized. Vaccination rates should be improved and case confirmation encouraged to prevent the underdiagnosis of this disease.
Keywords:
Pertussis/epidemiology; Whooping cough; Bordetella pertussis
