Acellular pertussis vaccines: where to go to?

Since their introduction in the 1940s and 1950s, pertussis vaccines (mostly in combination with diphtheria and tetanus toxoids as diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccines) have been very efficient in reducing pertussis mortality and morbidity in infants and young children. WHO estimates suggest that between 1999 and 2014, more than 100 000 infant deaths could have been averted mainly by increased coverage of pertussis vaccination.1 Pertussis vaccines come in two varieties: one is made of whole-cell killed Bordetella pertussis cells, consequently called whole-cell pertussis vaccine, and the other is made from one to five purified and partly chemically inactivated bacterial virulence factors, consequently called acellular pertussis vaccine.