[Antibiotic therapy in children with pertussis]

The data accumulated within the last years required revision of the indications to the use of antibiotics in treatment of pertussis. One of the aims of antibiotic therapy in pertussis was to prevent colonization of B. pertussis in the respiratory tracts. With that end in view the choice of antibiotics should be limited by those, to which the pathogen is the most sensitive i.e. erythromycin, ampicillin and augmentin. Comparative efficacy of erythromycin and ampicillin during the first 2 weeks of the disease was studied in 79 infants at the age not older than 1 year with pertussis and it was shown that erythromycin was advantageous by its therapeutic activity and less side effects. Expedience of the antibiotic therapy during the spastic period for providing a preventive effect on development of bronchopulmonary complications was studied in 201 patients with pertussis. No preventive effect of the antibiotics on development of the bronchopulmonary complications defined by the secondary bacterial flora was recorded. In the group of the patients treated with the antibiotics prophylactically (group 1) the complications were 2.6 times more frequent than in the patients treated with pathogenetic agents alone (group 2). Intrahospital pneumonia developed in 8.9 per cent of the patients in group 1 and in 1.5 per cent of the patients in group 2. Therefore, antibiotics should not be used at the late periods of pertussis for prophylaxis of secondary bacterial complications.