Association between pertussis vaccination in infancy and childhood asthma: A population-based record linkage cohort study.

Abstract

BackgroundAsthma is among the commonest noncommunicable diseases of childhood and often occurs with other atopic comorbidities. A previous case-control study found evidence that compared to children who received acellular pertussis (aP) vaccines in early infancy, children who received one or more doses of whole-cell pertussis (wP) vaccine had lower risk of developing IgE-mediated food allergy. We hypothesized that wP vaccination in early infancy might protect against atopic asthma in childhood.MethodsRetrospective record-linkage cohort study of children between 5 and Results274,405 children aged between 5 and ConclusionsWe found no convincing evidence of a clinically relevant association between receipt of wP versus aP vaccines in early infancy and hospital presentations for asthma in childhood.