• Sunghoon Park, Sun Hwa Lee, Ki-Hyun Seo, Kyeong-Cheol Shin, Yong Bum Park, Myung Goo Lee, Kwang Ha Yoo, Hui Jung Kim, Jae Seuk Park, Jae Hwa Cho, Yongchun Ko, Soo-Keol Lee, Ki Tae Cheon, Do Il Kim, Jun Wook Ha, Jae-Myung Lee, Ji-Won Suhr, Eui Hun Jeong, and Ki-Suck Jung.
• Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Anyang, Korea.
• J. Korean Med. Sci. 2014 Sep 1; 29 (9): 1232-9.

AbstractEpidemiological data of Bordetella pertussis infection among adolescents and adults are limited in Korea. Patients (≥ 11 yr of age) with a bothersome cough for less than 30 days were enrolled during a 1-yr period at 22 hospitals in Korea. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and for bacteriologic culture. In total, 490 patients were finally enrolled, and 34 (6.9%) patients tested positive for B. pertussis; cough duration (14.0 days [7.0-21.0 days]) and age distribution were diverse. The incidence was the highest in secondary referral hospitals, compared to primary care clinics or tertiary referral hospitals (24/226 [10.6%] vs. 3/88 [3.4%] vs. 7/176 [4.0%], P = 0.012), and the peak incidence was observed in February and August (15.8% and 15.9%), with no confirmed cases between March and June. In the multivariate analysis, post-tussive vomiting was significantly associated with pertussis (odds ratio, 2.508; 95% confidence interval, 1.146-5.486) and secondary referral hospital showed a borderline significance. In conclusion, using a PCR-based method, 6.9% of adolescent and adult patients with an acute cough illness had pertussis infection in an outpatient setting. However, hospital levels and seasonal trends must be taken into account to develop a better strategy for controlling pertussis.

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