pertussis

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Whooping cough.

   “With the introduction of an improved and standardized pertussis vaccine in the 1940s, there followed a remarkable decline in pertussis in the United States, most of the Western world, and Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.”

   “Bordetella pertussis is a Gram-negative bacterial pathogen that infects the human respiratory tract, causing the disease pertussis or whooping cough.”

   “2015, Dr. Stephen Berger, Pertussis: Global Status, GIDEON Informatics, Inc., E-book, page 343, During 1993 to 2004, the hospitalization rate [in the US] for pertussis among infants ages <= 2 months was 239 per 100,000 live births.”