Technology Evolving Slowly in U.S. Pertussis Testing
Oral fluid testing holds the potential to improve pertussis surveillance efforts, particularly for diagnosis of milder cases in patients who seek care later in the course of illness, according to a study published in June in Emerging Infectious Diseases. These patients represent a well-known gap in current surveillance efforts, which contributes to suboptimal identification of cases. Pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, is a nationally notifiable disease, and all cases are supposed to be reported through health departments to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System. Caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, whooping cough has been classified as a rapidly re-emerging disease and has even reached epidemic status in some states like California, where 4,558 new pertussis cases have been identified in 2014 (through June 24), surpassing the total number of reported cases in 2013. Nationally the CDC reports a 24 percent increase in the number of cases this year (through mid-June) over 2013. While the current surveillance system is useful for monitoring epidemiologic trends, limitations in laboratory diagnostics make reliance on the number of actual reported cases “problematic.” Existing pertussis surveillance systems tend to underidentify less severe cases, particularly among […]
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