The “How ” of Polymerase Chain Reaction Testing for Bordetella pertussis Depends on the “Why”

For most of its almost 400-year history as an identified human disease [1], whooping cough has been a clinical syn-drome measured by passive reporting of cases with classic symptoms. Since its identification as the cause of the whoop-ing cough syndrome by Bordet and Gengou a little more than 100 years ago, culture of Bordetella pertussis has been the reference standard for diagnosis, but even with optimal specimen collection and laboratory handling, the sensitivity of culture is low and timeliness poor [1]. In the 1990s, randomized clinical trials of pertussis vaccines in children an