Lucibee said on 14 December 2011
There are currently pertussis epidemics in the US, Australia and NZ. I suspect there is also one in the UK, as many of my friends currently have persistent coughs that their GPs are refusing to diagnose as whooping cough. Lots of inappropriate antibiotics being given out and still the entrenched belief that this disease is rare in adults persists. It isn't, and we really need to get over that.
Me and my partner had it 5 years ago. We failed to get a diagnosis from our GP, so suffered for 3 months with retching cough and little sleep. One of the reasons that notifications are so low is that once a patient realises that it is whooping cough, they also find out that there is nothing they can do about it, so don't bother going back to their GP. Treatment is only beneficial in within the first 2-3 weeks, and as far as I know, there is no vaccine available in the UK for adults.
This is a public health issue, not least because of the productivity loss among working adults, but because of the risk of it being passed on to newborns and those with other conditions that put them at increased risk of severe/life-threatening sequelae.