The overall attack rate of pertussis in the regiment was then estimated.
There is increasing evidence that pertussis continues to affect adolescents and young adults who were vaccinated as infants, albeit in a less severe form.
Four infants whose vaccination had not been completed at the time of pertussis were vaccinated shortly thereafter.
Monitoring these trends will be important as acellular vaccines are introduced and changes are made to pertussis vaccine schedules.
Mandatory notification of pertussis cases was initiated in the 1980s which explains the discrepancy observed for the years before 1980.
Despite these limitations, this small study has helped to validate the use of serological testing for diagnosis of pertussis.
However, routine pertussis surveillance data has well-recognized limitations related to variations in clinical and surveillance practice and a lack of sufficiently sensitive diagnostic methods.
In addition, we suggest conducting field studies for the active diagnosis of pertussis in adolescents and adults.
