[Current trend and importance of prevention on pertussis]

There has been talk about the rise in adult pertussis in Japan. This paper mentions three important points: (1) Why has there been a rise in the number of patients having pertussis ? (2) The difficulty in diagnosing pertussis. (3) Do all the DPT vaccines have the same contents? The pain when receiving DPT vaccine is various among three types of DPT vaccines. Adult pertussis vaccination has been carried out in the United States, but not in Japan. DPT vaccination in adults has been reducing the incidence of pertussis in the United States. In Japan, it has been investigated, but not started. The number of pertussis patients is expected to increase in the future in Japan. Therefore, it's important to address this to the public and create awareness. This will help in decreasing pertussis with early diagnosis and adequate therapy. If we see patients with prolonged cough, we should suspect that the patient may have pertussis. Five types of DPT vaccine are available in Japan. We examined the pain when children vaccinated among three types of DPT vaccines. As the result of our study, the difference of the pain is demonstrated three types of DPT vaccine. Further study is necessary for the reason why the pain was different among three types of DPT vaccine. We had better consider these results when we choose the DPT vaccine.