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Whooping cough may be under diagnosed

10 July 2006

Children with a persistent cough could be suffering from whooping cough in spite of the being vaccinated, warns new research published in the BMJ.

The study assessed 172 children aged between 5-16 in Oxfordshire who were taken to their doctor with a cough lasting two weeks or more. Blood testing showed that 40 percent of children had whooping cough.

About 86 percent of the children with whooping cough had been immunised. In those children that had been immunised, symptoms were less pronounced with few children having the whoop cough although most children had coughing spasms followed by vomiting.

The research team concluded that medical experts should consider a diagnosis of whooping cough when presented with children with a cough lasting more than two weeks, even if they have been immunised. They went on to say that failure to diagnose whooping cough could lead to children being given asthma drugs or referred to a specialist unnecessarily.


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