Whooping Cough Treatment - Whooping Cough Vaccinations And Antibiotics

2024 Author: Josephine Shorter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:43

Whooping cough treatment

Pertussis is an acute infectious disease. Whooping cough is caused by Bordetella pertussis. These microorganisms are spread by airborne droplets. The disease has a cyclical course and is accompanied by coughing fits.

Most doctors rightly consider whooping cough to be a disease that they managed to cope with “yesterday”. To understand the scale of the losses that whooping cough has inflicted on humanity, it should be remembered that in the middle of the twentieth century only in the USSR, out of 100,000 of the population, 428 people were infected. The mortality rate was 0.25%, which is a fairly high indicator. However, only a few decades have passed since the vaccine was developed, and the number of sick people has decreased 25 times, and the number of deaths - 1000 times.

In recent years, experts have also noted that the incidence of whooping cough continues to steadily decline. In Russia in 2004, 11,099 people were infected with this infection (7.7 per 100,000 population), and the overwhelming majority of them are children, the number of whom is 10,315 people (44.6 per 100,000 children). In large metropolitan areas, the number of people with whooping cough is significantly higher than the same indicators compared to villages and towns. This is due to the high level of human migration and the crowded urban population, which contributes to the spread of infection.

Content:

• Whooping cough treatment in children
• Taking antibacterial drugs for prevention
• Should you get the whooping cough vaccine?

Doctors point out that in recent years, the number of children who fall ill with atypical and mild whooping cough (age group 7-14 years) has increased. Doctors are now less suspicious of the spread of this infection among children of primary and secondary school age, while late diagnosis negatively affects the outcome of the disease.

Bordetella pertussis is the name of the aerobic bacterium that triggers the development of whooping cough. She is very picky about the environment. To grow a colony of pertussis bacilli, special media are required: potato-glycerin agar or casein-coal agar. Blood agar allows bacteria to grow slowly. Only by the third day, small colonies appear, having a grayish-shiny color. To suppress the growth of other microflora, scientists add Cephalexin to the nutrient medium.

In the external environment, whooping cough dies very quickly, therefore the culture must be done immediately, immediately after taking sputum for analysis. The bacterium is susceptible to the effects of disinfectants, but at the same time, in dry sputum, it is able to maintain its viability for several hours.

The bacterium contains 8 agglutinogens, antigen 1.2.3 being the leading one. Scientists have identified 4 bacterial serotypes: 1.0.0.; 1.2.3.; 1.0.3.; 1.2.0. Over the past 10 years, microorganisms 1.0.3 and 1.2.0 predominate. They are secreted from vaccinated children and provoke the development of mild to atypical whooping cough. Serotype 1.2.3 is isolated from unvaccinated young children, which causes a severe form of the disease.

The bacterial wall of whooping cough is represented by the following components:

• Exotoxin.
• Filamentous hemagglutinin.
• Proektin agglutinogens.
• Tracheal cytotoxin.
• Adenylate cyclase toxin.
• Dermonecrotoxin.
• Outer membrane protein BrKa.
• Lipopolysaccharide.
• Histamine sensitizing factor.

Whooping cough treatment in children

There is practically no opportunity to rid the body of the typical pathogens of whooping cough. Moreover, the reason lies not in the fact that modern science has not been able to develop drugs, but in the fact that the time for taking them in most cases is lost.

Pertussis sticks are most active for 10-12 days after human infection. If you start giving an antibiotic to a child or an adult during this period, you will be able to safely get rid of the infection, and also prevent the appearance of a paroxysmal cough in the future. However, it is extremely difficult to diagnose the disease during this period. There is no cough immediately after infection, and other symptoms of whooping cough are similar to a common respiratory viral infection.

The bacteria that provoke whooping cough cannot develop resistance to antibacterial drugs. Therefore, if it is detected in the early stages of the development of the disease, almost any antibiotic can be used, and whooping cough will be destroyed. Thus, it will be possible to prevent the development of serious complications.

However, this is almost impossible, since the cough manifests itself only after the prodromal period. In this phase, giving the patient an antibacterial drug no longer makes sense, since Bordetella already begins to lose in numbers and is gradually excreted from the body.

Therefore, the result is disappointing: a cure for the treatment of whooping cough exists, but it cannot be applied in time.

Taking antibacterial drugs for prevention

Although antibiotics often fail to cure adults or children from whooping cough for the reasons described above, they can nevertheless be used prophylactically. The drug of choice in this case is Erythromycin.

Pediatrician E. O. Komarovsky: “The use of antibiotics for prophylactic purposes is unacceptable, but whooping cough is one of the rarest exceptions to this rule. Erythromycin was and remains the # 1 drug of choice. It is not only effective, but also inexpensive and practically safe. Erythromycin does not have a pronounced negative effect on the gastrointestinal tract, on the liver, therefore, pediatricians around the world recommend using it to prevent the spread of whooping cough among the population."

You should not independently purchase and use an antibiotic without the absence of medical advice. It is prescribed by a doctor, provided that a healthy person has been in contact with a patient who has been diagnosed with whooping cough. First of all, this applies to those cases when a child is sick in the family. In such a situation, all adults are recommended to take Erythromycin for prophylactic purposes. Remember that all people are susceptible to whooping cough bacteria. Therefore, provided that the vaccination was carried out a long time ago, and the child was diagnosed with whooping cough, it is necessary to begin a preventive course of antibiotic therapy.

Should you get the whooping cough vaccine?

Pertussis is a deadly disease for children under 2 years of age. This is due to the underdevelopment of the muscles of the respiratory system, so babies can hardly withstand the paroxysmal onslaught of the disease. In this regard, the first pertussis vaccine is given to children as early as 3 months.

When a child becomes infected before the age of 3 months, he is urgently hospitalized. Otherwise, the risk of death will be very high.

As a rule, the child is given pertussis vaccine as part of the DPT vaccine. In parallel, the small patient will be protected from tetanus and diphtheria.

Immunity to the disease lasts for 3-5 years, so you should not rely on lifelong protection. In connection with this fact, many parents are wondering about the need to introduce re-vaccination to a child at an older age.

Doctors strongly recommend not to give up the revaccination, because whooping cough is very difficult in childhood. Moreover, the younger the child, the more dangerous form of the disease he develops. While an adult with whooping cough will simply cough for several months, the baby is at risk of death.

Until the vaccine was invented, whooping cough took the lives of children very often. This disease has been the leading cause of infant mortality. Thanks to vaccination, it was possible to reduce the number of child deaths by 45 times! However, even now, babies continue to die from whooping cough. The main cause of death is parental refusal to vaccinate.

Author of the article: Danilova Tatyana Vyacheslavovna | Infectionist

Education: in 2008 received a diploma in General Medicine (General Medicine) at the Pirogov Russian Research Medical University. Immediately passed an internship and received a diploma of a therapist