The article examines pertussis (whooping cough) among patients consulting general practitioners in Poland between 2009 and 2011. Using data from a prospective cohort study, we demonstrated that the disease is substantially underreported: the estimated incidence was 201.1 cases per 100,000 person\u2011years\u2014approximately 61 times higher than figures captured by national surveillance. Adolescents aged 15\u201319 years experienced the highest incidence, whereas rates were lowest among adults aged 25\u201329 years. The findings underscore the need to strengthen surveillance and increase clinical awareness of pertussis beyond childhood, particularly in adult and elderly populations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study, conducted within a well\u2011funded and carefully prepared network of general practices, showed that while pertussis is diagnosed and reported relatively reliably in young children, it is frequently missed in older age groups. This gap has important public health implications, as adults\u2014especially parents and grandparents\u2014may unknowingly transmit a potentially fatal infection to newborns and infants before they are fully vaccinated.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Article in English published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1074,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true},"class_list":["post-1099","publikacje","type-publikacje","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacje\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacje"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikacje"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}