WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Dr. Umendra Kumar*, Dr. Prof Amar Verma and Dr. Shivshankar

ABSTRACT

Intoduction: Pertussis is one of the common vaccine preventable disease in many parts of world including Jharkhand state of India. It is an important cause of death in infants worldwide. Whooping cough is one of the most lethal diseases of infants and young children who are unimmunized, particularly those with underlying malnutrition and other respiratory infections. There has been a paradigm shift in age and cases are being reported amongst older children, adolescents and adults. Aims and objective: To screen and confirm cases of pertussis amongst the pediatric patients (0-18 years) presenting with cough for more than 2 weeks duration in OPD and Emergency of Department of Pediatrics and Neonatology in Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, Jharkhand by nasopharyngeal throat swab culture. Material and methods: This was a cross sectional study in a tertiary care hospital in RIMS Ranchi over more than one year period from April 2018 to July 2019. 500 patients of pertussis like illness, presented with cough of more than 2 weeks duration over the period from April 2018 to July 2019 were included in this study. Relevant clinical examination and microbiological examination including nasopharyngeal throat swab culture and sensitivity test was done. Conclusion: Clinical presentation of many cases was akin to pertussis but we could not get a culture positive new case of pertussis.