Pertussis vaccines

Abstract

Concern over adverse reactions temporally associated with whole cell pertussis vaccine and advances in the understanding of the Bordetella pertussis organism have led to a new generation of more purified acellular vaccines. The biology of the pertussis organism, epidemiology of disease, vaccine development over the decades, and vaccine efficacy and adverse reaction data from whole cell and acellular vaccine trials are presented. Questions that remain to be answered before acellular vaccine replaces conventional vaccine are defined, and future studies addressing these questions are proposed.