Whooping cough is an acute infectious disease. The source of infection is exclusively a person who has become ill with this disease, or a healthy carrier. Extreme contagion is represented by patients at the initial stage of the disease, in the so-called catarrhal period. Contact of a healthy person with an infection carrier in 9 out of 10 cases leads to infection. Infection occurs through the air. Whooping cough is a disease, usually in the preschool period.
Neither pertussis vaccines nor pertussis have already given immunity. Treatment in case of re-infection will be required again. However, as they grow older, the risk of developing whooping cough decreases - in only one case out of 20 whooping cough affects an adult.
The stages of the development of the disease include an incubation period, which can last from 2 days to 2 weeks. It was during that period that an unsuspecting patient was able to spread the infection among people from his circle of contacts. Diagnosis of pertussis begins with recognition of the nature of the cough. And the disease passes from the stage of latent course to the development of characteristic symptoms. Recognizing whooping cough, treatment begins with isolating the patient and alleviating his condition.
Signs of whooping cough include: general well-being, weakness, slight runny nose, and cough. The patient’s body temperature is slightly elevated. Such signs make one think that the patient has a common cold. However, as the disease develops, the cough begins to intensify, passing to the end of the second week into spasmodic. Ill children become irritable, begin to act up. In the developmental stage of the disease, a cough is a series of coughing tremors that alternate with deep whistling breaths. The frequency of coughing attacks reaches 15. At the end of a coughing attack, secretion of viscous sputum, sometimes with vomiting, follows. The behavior of the child during the attack is irritated. The face takes on a cyanotic appearance, the veins expand due to tension, during a coughing fit, trauma to the frenum of the tongue is frequent , even respiratory arrest is possible. Due to the danger of symptoms that characterize whooping cough, treating a child at home is not always possible (especially if the baby is not yet one year old). Such attacks can last for 3-4 weeks, then the coughing urge becomes weaker and less frequent, and after it disappears altogether. For 2-3 weeks, it is possible to maintain a small ordinary cough (cough after physical exertion and at times of excitement can sometimes persist up to several months). In adults, the course of the disease is slightly different: coughing fits are rare, they may not be present at all, and the infection manifests itself in signs of prolonged bronchitis, accompanied by a strong, non-convulsive cough. The body temperature, which happens with a disease such as whooping cough, does not differ from normal. Treatment in adults proceeds, as a rule, at home. Children under one year of age, as well as seriously ill people, are subject to urgent hospitalization. In uncomplicated cases, and that is exactly the way pertussis is most often tolerated, treatment is carried out at home.
The question of how to treat whooping cough is the responsibility of a specialist doctor, since there are no strictly defined drugs that could cure this ailment. However, the course of the disease can be facilitated.
The role of antibiotics is usually important at the very beginning of the disease. Taking antibiotics during a period of coughing does not bring any improvement. Although the causative agent of whooping cough shows sensitivity to a wide variety of antibacterial drugs, most often doctors recommend erythromycin or azithromycin. A good effect is also achieved with levomycetin and tetracycline. However, chloramphenicol is prescribed reluctantly due to the greater toxicity of the drug compared to other antibiotics. Tetracycline is not suitable for the treatment of children who are not yet 8 years old.
For a favorable outcome of the disease, it is especially important to have fresh air in the room, calm, not causing spasms, the situation, observing the daily regimen and taking vitamins.