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martyb writes:

Whooping cough evolving into a superbug:

Australia needs a new whooping cough vaccine to ensure our most vulnerable are protected from the emergence of superbug strains, new UNSW research has shown.

The current vaccine, widely used since 2000, targets three antigens in the bacteria of the highly contagious respiratory disease which can be fatal to infants.

All babies under six months old -- in particular, newborns not protected by maternal immunisation -- are at risk of catching the vaccine-preventable disease because they are either too young to be vaccinated or have not yet completed the three-dose primary vaccine course.

Australia's whooping cough epidemic from 2008 to 2012 saw more than 140,000 cases -- with a peak of almost 40,000 in 2011 -- and revealed the rise of evolving strains able to evade vaccine-generated immunity.

In a series of UNSW studies, with the latest published today in Vaccine, UNSW researchers took this knowledge further and showed, in a world-first discovery, that the evolving strains made additional changes to better survive in their host, regardless of that person's vaccination status. They also identified new antigens as potential vaccine targets.

First author and microbiologist Dr Laurence Luu, who led the team of researchers with Professor Ruiting Lan, said whooping cough's ability to adapt to vaccines and survival in humans might be the answer to its surprise resurgence despite Australia's high vaccination rates.

"We found the whooping cough strains were evolving to improve their survival, regardless of whether a person was vaccinated or not, by producing more nutrient-binding and transport proteins, and fewer immunogenic proteins which are not targeted by the vaccine," Dr Luu said.

[...] "Put simply, the bacteria that cause whooping cough are becoming better at hiding and better at feeding -- they're morphing into a superbug."

Dr Luu said it was therefore possible for a vaccinated person to contract whooping cough bacteria without symptoms materialising.

Journal Reference:
Laurence Don Wai Luu, Sophie Octavia, Chelsea Aitken, Ling Zhong, Mark J. Raftery, Vitali Sintchenko, Ruiting Lan. Surfaceome analysis of Australian epidemic Bordetella pertussis reveals potential vaccine antigens. Vaccine, 2020; 38 (3): 539 DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.10.062

Original Submission