Pertussis infection in adults presenting with persistent cough in general practice.

Pertussis infection in adults presenting with persistent cough in general p ractice. Coughing is a common symptom in patients consulting a general pratictioner. Causes of chronic coughs are well defined. Whooping cough is rarely mentio ned among etiology. It is suspected even less frequently for early persiste nt coughs that present diagnostic and therapeutic problems in primary care. A diagnosis of whooping cough is often anecdotal. However, studies find Bo rdetella pertussis infection among 12 to 32% of adults consulting for a per sistent cough without any clinical particularity. At the same lime, a resur gence of whooping cough is being observed among infants contaminated by adu lts, especially in the lie de France region. in this area, the vaccination coverage is high and the vaccine efficacy is well documented A study involv ing 217 adult patients recruited from this region with recent or unusual co ugh of less than 31 successive days that had not improved in the last Seven days was conducted to determine the prevalence of whooping cough and to de scribe its clinical symptoms. (C) 2001 Editions scientifiques ef medicales Elsevier SAS.