• Pertussis
• Vaccine

We often see school-age children in our clinics who continue to cough, but are well in themselves, and who have no evidence of asthma or continuing infection. We may suspect mild pertussis, but usually would not investigate for this specifically, as the cough is likely to resolve without treatment. The worrying morbidity and mortality from pertussis is all in younger infants.

Researchers working in primary care in Oxford, UK, identified about 280 children aged 5–15 who had presented to their GP with persistent cough lasting 2 to 8 weeks (Wang K and colleagues. BMJ 2014;348:g3668). …