title: Antibiotic treatment of pertussis: are 7 days really sufficient?
abstract: Short courses of antibiotic therapy are recommended for treatment of pertussis. We report 2 young unvaccinated infants with persistently positive Bordetella pertussis by polymerase chain reaction from nasopharyngeal swabs despite 7 days of clarithromycin (15 mg/kg/d) therapy. In 1 patient, quantitative polymerase chain reaction was 7.02 (log GEq/mL) at the onset of treatment, 6.26 at the end of treatment and remained positive with 2.64 and 2.69 during and after a second 7-day course, respectively. The generally believed assumption that contagiousness of pertussis is terminated after 5 days of antibiotic treatment should be challenged, at least in young infants.
authors.affiliation: From the *Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University Children's Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland; †Division of Infection Diagnostics, Department Biomedicine (Haus Petersplatz), University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland; and ‡University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Alexa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dierig
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Beckmann
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Heininger
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D001886:Bordetella pertussis / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D017291:Clarithromycin / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009305:Nasopharynx / Q000382:microbiology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013997:Time Factors; D014917:Whooping Cough / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D017291:Clarithromycin