Free whooping cough vaccine is currently available to all Western Australian parents of newborn babies. For more information, see whooping cough (pertussis) information for consumers  

Fact sheets

Pertussis (whooping cough) fact sheet (PDF 121KB)

Public Health action

• OD 0129/08 National Guidelines for the Public Health Management of Pertussis

• Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic. Therapeutic Guidelines Limited: Melbourne

• Australian Immunisation Handbook

• Communicable Disease Guidelines, for teachers, child care workers, local government authorities and medical practitioners. Department of Health, Western Australia 

• Pertussis GP Guidelines 2010 (PDF 52KB)

Notifiable disease data and reports

• Up-to-date Pertussis notification data

• General infectious disease reports

Additional sources of information

• Control of Communicable Diseases Manual  

Exclusion

Cases: exclude for 21 days from the onset of cough or for 5 days after starting antibiotic treatment.
Contacts: management will be coordinated by Department of Health staff

Case definition

Reporting

Both confirmed cases and probable cases should be notified.

Confirmed case

A confirmed case requires either:

1. Laboratory definitive evidence
OR

2. Laboratory suggestive evidence AND clinical evidence
OR

3. clinical evidence AND epidemiological evidence

Laboratory definitive evidence

1. Isolation of Bordetella pertussis
OR

2. Detection of B. pertussis by nucleic acid testing.

Laboratory suggestive evidence

1. Seroconversion or significant increase in antibody level or fourfold or greater rise in titre to B. pertussis in the absence of recent pertussis vaccination)
OR

2. Single high IgA titre to whole cells
OR

3. Detection of B. pertussis antigen by immunofluorescence assay (IFA).

Clinical evidence

1. A coughing illness lasting two or more weeks
OR

2. Paroxysms of coughing OR inspiratory whoop OR post-tussive vomiting.

Epidemiological evidence

An epidemiological link is established when there is:

1. Contact between two people involving a plausible mode of transmission at a time when:

a) one of them is likely to be infectious (from the catarrhal stage, approximately one week before, to three weeks after onset of cough)
AND

b) the other has an illness which starts within 6 to 20 days after this contact
AND

2. At least one case in the chain of epidemiologically linked cases (which may involve many cases) is a confirmed case with at least laboratory suggestive evidence.

Probable case

A probable case requires clinical evidence only.

Clinical evidence

1. A coughing illness lasting two or more weeks
AND

2. Paroxysms of coughing OR inspiratory whoop OR post-tussive vomiting