Advanced Nursing Practices

Dimitrios Papagiannis, Public Health and Vaccines Laboratory, Faculty of Nursing, University of Thessaly, Greece

Pertussis is a highly infectious disease caused by the Bordetella pertussis bacterium. Humans are the only known reservoir of the bacterium, thus the transmission of the disease occurs between people only, and unlike other childhood diseases, the immunity conferred by a first infection is not definitive, but declines over time.