A Bordetella pertussis outbreak has been reported by the National Institute of Health (INS) of Colombia in the Kogui community, an indigenous group living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains in Northern Colombia, on March 18, 2022. They have remained isolated from the rest of the world since the Spanish conquest, rarely interacting with the modern world and not allowing outsiders inside their ancestral lands. The field investigation began on March 16, 2022 in different hospital centers in the city of Santa Marta, and identified a total of 17 hospitalized children from the Kogui indigenous community, 5 of them in the intensive care unit and 12 in a state of acute malnutrition. The samples analyzed by the INS National Reference Laboratory confirmed the detection of Bordetella pertussis through PCR; all infected children were unvaccinated. Alfonso Torres Villafañe, indigenous leader and legal representative, reported further that 21 Kogui children have...
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In a country like Lebanon, living in a state of ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ even an epidemic may go unnoticed or neglected.
Recently I have been seeing many cases of chronic spasmodic cough attributed to viruses, lasting up to 2 months, very typical of whooping cough.
I myself caught the infection from one of my patients. 15 days ago and am still coughing spasmodically. One of our pastors has
slept in the sitting position for 4 days to be avoid that nasty cough triggered in the horizontal position. I am now starting azithromycin
to patients with the typical cough, though it is considered to be late at that stage, but hoping to prevent complications. Most children
are vaccinated and immune, but may soon become vulnerable should vaccines become scarce or adulterated by corruption. Do not
assume all epidemics are viral, though most of them are.
Boghos L Artinian MD
Thanks for the insights. YES, we published in organisms that cause a disease similar to pertussis: The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal Issue: Volume 17(7), July 1998, pp 645-649 Copyright: (C) Williams & Wilkins 1998. All Rights Reserved. Publication Type: [Original Studies] ISSN: 0891-3668 Accession: 00006454-199807000-00013 Keywords: Pertussis-like, adenovirus, parainfluenza virus, Mycoplasma, serology