Pertussis still continues to cause significant
morbidity and
mortality worldwide. Because of the high reactogenicity of whole
cell pertussis vaccine, it had evoked public controversy in several countries. In 1970
Japan abandoned use of whole
cell pertussis vaccine and mounted efforts to develop better
vaccine. To date, nearly 24 acellular
pertussis vaccines have been developed, using different number and quantity of components. No
acellular vaccine is most or least immunogenic with
respect to all included
antigens.
Vaccine efficacy and duration of
immunity is comparable with whole
cell pertussis vaccine. The adverse events are two thirds less compared to whole
cell vaccine.