Jmol development team [GNU GPL] via Wikimedia CommonsPertussis, or whooping cough, is a highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It has reemerged as a public health concern as pertussis rates in the US have increased and reached a 50-year high of 42,000 cases in 2012. This resurgence is not completely understood but is believed to be related to the replacement of whole-cell vaccines with acellular vaccines in the 1990s. Tod Merkel (US Food and Drug Administration, Bethesda, MD) and colleagues recently compared the efficacy of whole-cell and acellular pertussis vaccines in baboons (Papio anubis).
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