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Pertussis Vaccine (PTx)

Bordetella pertussis is a human pathogen that is responsible for the causation of severe respiratory illness. The disease commonly affects children and is more severe among the infants who are too young to be vaccinated. Most of the deaths and hospitalization cases that are caused by Bordetella pertussis mostly affects the young infants. Recommended immunization is done to the pregnant mothers to protect the infants from birth until their first vaccination at the age of six weeks. Maternal vaccination is done with licensed acellular pertussis vaccine to protect the newborns from being infected with pertussis.

In the previous studies using the baboon pertussis model, the vaccinated the baboons with aP vaccines that protected them from diseases when they were exposed to bacteria after five weeks, but despite their protection with the vaccine, the maternal vaccination failed to protect the infants from the bacterial colonization of the upper respiratory tract. From the study the scientists hypothesized that it was the protection was due to the toxin-neutralizing, maternal anti-pertussis toxin antibodies, as well as the prediction that maternal vaccination with pertussis toxoid (PTx) only vaccine, was capable of protecting the child from being infected with pertussis.

In the current study, pregnant baboon mothers were vaccinated with only PTx vaccine and then exposed the infant baboons of the vaccinated mothers to pertussis at five weeks of age. The results of the study indicated that the infants of vaccinated baboons did not develop pertussis but those of unvaccinated baboons developed severe pertussis and this had the indication that the vaccination of the mother alone was enough to protect the infants from pertussis infection. Furthermore, most of the severe symptoms associated with pertussis are due to the action of pertussis toxin and can be blocked through the provision of toxin-neutralizing antibodies.

The potential benefit of the study is that it supports the development of maternal vaccines against pertussis requiring only PTx component reducing the cost of producing the pertussis component of combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. The other experiment that I would recommend is the clinical trial of the PTx vaccine to pregnant mothers to tests whether the vaccine will be successful to humans. The results of the experiment will be positive as the baboons are a close family to humans and this means that the vaccine will work effectively in the protection of infants from pertussis.