About
Whooping cough is a respiratory disease caused by a bacterium (Bordetella Pertussis) which can, in certain cases and in particular in infants, be severe or even fatal (this is called malignant whooping cough). The objective of this research project, coordinated by the BEBP research unit of Institut Pasteur in collaboration with several French hospitals, is to identify the factors and mechanisms that lead to malignant whooping cough.
Your child was hospitalized when he was an infant for whooping cough in one of the hospitals that collaborate with the Institut Pasteur in the framework of this project. During his hospitalization, a sample was taken from your infant’s nose (this is called a swab or a nasopharyngeal aspirate) to look for the presence and isolate the bacteria causing pertussis. To confirm the diagnosis of whooping cough, part of this sample was sent to the National Reference Center (NRC) for Whooping Cough and other Bordetellosis (hosted within the BEBP unit), then cultured to isolate the bacterium responsible, as part of the public health missions of this NRC.
For this project, we want to work on the bacterium isolated from your child’s sample and kept at the NRC, and also use health data collected by the medical team during his medical care (data contained in the medical file of your child). If you wish, you can obtain further information on this project by consulting the information notes (see NRC homepage) or by contacting Dr Julie Toubiana, coordinator of this project (see NRC homepage), specifying in your message that it is about the PERT-SEVERE study.
