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ORPHA:1489

Whooping cough

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Pertussis

Publications

104,405

99.6th percentile

Trials

299

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,328

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare bacterial infectious disease characterized by severe coughing paroxysms with inspiratory whooping and posttussive vomiting, caused by infection with Bordetella pertussis. After a variable incubation time, the clinical course progresses through a catarrhal stage with sore throat, nasal congestion, rhinorrhea, and mild dry cough, a paroxysmal stage with the typical paroxysmal coughing, and finally convalescence. Disease duration is usually 2-3 months, often with milder presentation in adolescents and adults than in infants and children.

How rare: 1-9 / 100 000 — about one to nine people per hundred thousand.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (6)

Bordetella pertussis caused disease or disorder · Bordetella pertussis disease or disorder · Bordetella pertussis infection · Bordetella pertussis infectious disease · pertussis · whooping cough

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    104,405 matched papers (32,165 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    299 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (22 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

104,405

104,405 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

104,405 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

32,165 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 99.6th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 104,405 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,328

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Li J7 papers · 2026

    National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Tracking and Forecasting for Infectious Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Zhang Y7 papers · 2026

    Expanded Program Immunization Division, Shandong Center for Disease Control and Prevention,Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, Jinan 250014, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Wang Y6 papers · 2026

    Department of Pharmacy, Jinhua Municipal Central Hospital, Jinhua, 321000, China, jhzxyy.cn.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Zhu Y6 papers · 2026

    Department of Immunization Program, Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hangzhou 310000, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Hariri S5 papers · 2026

    Division of Bacterial Diseases, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    He HQ5 papers · 2026

    Department of Immunization Program, Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hangzhou 310000, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    He Q5 papers · 2026

    European Reference laboratory for Public Health on Diphtheria and Pertussis (EURL-PH-DIPE), Turku, Finland.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Wang J5 papers · 2026

    The Center for Microbes, Development and Health, CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Immunology, Shanghai Institute of Immunity and Infection, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Wu Y5 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurology, Xi'an Children's Hospital, the Affiliated Children's Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710003, Shaanxi, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Zhang L5 papers · 2026

    Expanded Program Immunization Division, Shandong Center for Disease Control and Prevention,Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, Jinan 250014, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

299

interventional trials for this specific condition

299 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 22 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

299 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 99.5th percentile).

high confidence · 99.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

299 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

65 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Whooping cough" OR "Pertussis" OR "Bordetella pertussis infection" OR "Bordetella pertussis infectious disease"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Whooping cough" OR "Pertussis" OR "Bordetella pertussis infection" OR "Bordetella pertussis infectious disease"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 299 interventional · 65 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: Bordetella pertussis caused disease or disorder; Bordetella pertussis disease or disorder

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-26T17:32:44.208Z