New acellular pertussis vaccines have recently been developed in China and India. In this context, potency testing and potential improvements of the protective animal models with inclusion of a reference material were recognized as critical issues in the quality assessment of acellular pertussis vaccines. One of these models, namely Modified Intracerebral Challenge Assay (MICA), is currently us...

In Japan, the morbidity rate for pertussis per 100,000 population was 147.6 in 1950 when whole cell pertussis vaccine was introduced but dropped to 0.2 in 1972 when routine immunization with a combined vaccine consisting of diphtheria toxoid, tetanus toxoid, and whole cell pertussis had been widely accepted. Thereafter, adverse reactions to the whole cell pertussis vaccine became a social probl...

BACKGROUND The risk of immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) after childhood vaccines other than measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) is unknown. METHODS Using data from 5 managed care organizations for 2000 to 2009, we identified a cohort of 1.8 million children ages 6 weeks to 17 years. Potential ITP cases were identified by using diagnostic codes and platelet counts. All cases were verified...

The currently available pertussis vaccines are highly efficacious. However, whole cell vaccines display some reactogenicity and acellular vaccines are less toxic, but elevated costs limit their use in developing countries. Instituto Butantan, Brasil, has developed a new technology to remove lipopolysaccharides from the whole cell vaccine using a simplified and not expensive methodology, which a...

Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the bacterial pathogen Bordetella pertussis. Pertussis rates in the United States have escalated since the 1990s and reached a 50-year high of 48,000 cases in 2012. While this pertussis resurgence is not completely understood, we previously showed that the current acellular pertussis vaccines do not prevent colonization or transmiss...

Pertussis or whooping cough is a highly infectious , vaccine preventable, acute respiratory tract disease. Historically, it is a disease of infants and children, but recent data reveals pertussis cases from patients of all ages and gender (1). Of particular importance are the cases of atypical, adolescent and adult pertussis, characterized by persistent cough. Both typical as well atypical pert...

Pertussis is resurgent, and many cases are occurring in vaccinated children and adolescents. In countries using acellular vaccines, waning immunity is at least part of the problem. This article discusses possible improvements in those vaccines.

Childhood acellular pertussis vaccines were licensed and implemented in the US in the 1990s following an effort to improve on the safety profile of whole-cell vaccines. However, waning of immunity from acellular vaccines may be driving the recent resurgence of pertussis, raising the need to consider new prevention strategies.

A purification procedure of pertussis toxin (PT) from submerged culture of Bordetella pertussis (B.pertussis) strain 134 using adsorption and affinity chromatography was discussed. The yield of the resulting PT was approximately 37.5mg/l of concentrated culture supernatant. The polypeptide pattern of the purified PT was investigated by SDS-PAGE and showed five bands between 11 to 26 KDa using l...

Immunization with the 69-kD outer membrane protein (OMP) of Bordetella pertussis protected neonatal mice against lethal respiratory challenge with B. pertussis 18323. Active immunization elicited a serum IgG anti-69-kD OMP response at the time of challenge, with IgG anti-69-kD OMP antibodies detected in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid after challenge. Intravenous administration of BPE8, a monoclon...