Abstract
Pertussis is a respirátory disease caused by the Gramnegative encapsulated bacterium Bordetella pertusis. Despite the high vaccination coverage rate and addition of new booster doses to the immunisation scheme (in response to the epidemiological situation), pertusis is on the rise not only in the Czech Republic but also in many other countries.
The age groups at highest risk are infants and, to a lower exent, newborns who can get infected before receiving the first dose of vaccine and develop a severe course of the disease, often requiring admission to hospital. The most common source of infection are adolescents from the child's close environment who experience a mild course of the disease because of the previous vaccination.
The immune response induced by the currently available acellular vaccines does not last. It can be reasonably assumed that pertusis has been underreported.
Multiple studies have shown mutations in the causative bacterium that confer higher pathogenicity to it, either as a result of enhanced production of pertusis toxin or loss of some antigens. Possible strategies to control these negative trends are to develop novel moe effective vaccines using new adjuvants or to use whole-cell vaccines.
Maternal vaccination in pregnancy trimester 3 also turned out to be effective.