Just hearing the term Whooping Cough makes you picture a person doubled over hacking up a lung in obvious distress. I’ve had a cough the past month or so and I can’t even begin to imagine how much worse this would be. The more scientific name for whooping cough is pertussis and the even more scientific name is Bordetella pertussis. We’re going to be discussing what type of Pertussis vaccines there are and how they work. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, VACCINATE, PEOPLE!!
In simplified terms, Whooping Cough is caused by Gram-negative bacteria that make you cough uncontrollably for 2-3 months. You can get this infection when someone coughs or sneezes near or on you and they have the infection (p.s. if you know you have Whooping Cough, please don’t go out in public). The most common vaccine is the aP, or acellular Pertussis vaccine. This vaccine injects antigens into the body to trigger an immune response. Although this has thought to have been the best defense for the disease in the past few decades, Whooping Cough has yet to be eradicated. Therefore, we have known about this disease for a while now, but we (and by we I mean the great scientists that understand how to do all this stuff, not me) have yet to develop a truly effective way of preventing this disease. There is a newer alternative to the aP vaccine, though, and it’s looking to be more promising.
A Swedish Study conducted an experiment using the BPZE1 vaccine and compared its results to the aP vaccine. The BPZE1 vaccine is a live attenuated vaccine, meaning the bacteria within the vaccine are alive but are weakened to where they cannot cause disease. The vaccine experiment showed immune cells that developed specifically for the treatment of Pertussis. Not only this, but the antibodies produced covered a broader range of Pertussis-specific antibodies that allow the body to attack from several angles. Therefore, we may be getting closer and closer to a truly effective Pertussis vaccine.
Landyn's Microbial World 