Otherwise known as “whooping cough”, vaccines used against this terrible, highly contagious infection have been around for over a hundred years. However, the vaccine has been changing rapidly. It will never stay the same. Most recently, the vaccine has been improved so that morbidity has been reduced at significant rates and in such a broad way that it has created great attention that allows it to be used alongside other vaccines as a building block to create identical effects. The development of this what they call a “whole-cell” and “acellular” form of the vaccine is what created this movement. These, which are commonly used on children are given so much attention because it is vital that they are in their best form to protect against the illness that is most easily spread between those in this age range. My twin sister at a very young age, young enough in that all I remember is the vague occurrence of my parents having to rock me outside of the house to not hear or be infected by my sisters cough at night, got the croup. A completely different illness but similar in that a very bad cough is experiences and is very contagious. This is what I think of every time I hear whooping cough just because it is more severe and I cant image a baby having to go through this with such a weak immune system. This describes the prime age range of those who are usually affected by the illness. That is why these two new forms of the vaccine are important to those studying the vaccine because it is important to consider which vaccine to be given whether acellular or whole-cell as well as the regulation and schedule or administering the vaccine to your child. This is an important factor to consider with any vaccine and especially pertussis because the time of exposure is a driving factor of this vaccine specifically.
As i just mentioned, lost of studying and trials have been underway to determine what exactly goes into the pertussis vaccine and why it is so important to watch and adhere to a specific schedule when receiving the vaccine. Scientists have narrowed these down into 3 groups. These groups are: scientific factors, sociological factors, and pragmatic factors. When I read these I had no clue what they meant by these extremely relative terms. However, I broke these down in my head as the factors that determine which vaccine you need, how much you need, and when you need it. For infants, it is important to consider immune response, as well as public acceptability. Public acceptability is very important to consider in todays age and time. Infants receiving vaccines is a very sensitive topic, something that I personally don’t understand knowing so much about herd immunity and the effect this would have on whooping cough if all would be vaccinated.
The only means of control for Pertussis is immunization. This is due to the highly contagious cough that can last all the way up to 100 days that accompanies the illness and is a signal of being infected. Maternal immunization is also very important to consider with this illness. This would be connected with the acellular form of the vaccine, where mothers are vaccinated to reduce the number of infant deaths. However, it means nothing if the vaccine being administered is not effective or the quality is lacking. That is why so much regulation is gone into vaccines. Before the vaccine was generated in the 1940’s this illness killed nearly 9,000 children. This is a statistic important to remember and recall when considering the quality of the vaccine.
Recent studies have been trying to find a connection between biofilms and pertussis and whether they have an effect on the illness as a whole. Knowing that these type of infections are extremely chronic, it is important to consider their ability to be resistant towards antibiotics. Biofilms are most commonly directly associated with inflammation and are usually found affecting cells inside us rather than extracellular. Biofilms are also known for leading to cancer in the future of those who have been affected by these microorganisms. This is the current mode of study for the Pertussis vaccine.
MicroBio 