1. Schematic flow diagram for recommended laboratory diagnosis of B
Schematic flow diagram for recommended laboratory diagnosis of B. pertussis.
Schematic flow diagram for recommended laboratory diagnosis of B. pertussis. Only for very young infants is an elevated white blood cell count (≥20,000 cells/μl) diagnostic for a B. pertussis infection. The depicted algorithm was proposed by Cherry et al. (29), except that we added the recommendation of performing PCR for the older age group and the late stage of disease, as PCR may in some cases be positive after more than 3 weeks of cough, albeit by detection of DNA of nonviable B. pertussis cells. Mo, month; y, year; WBC, white blood cell; IgG, immunoglobulin G; PT, pertussis toxin.
Anneke van der Zee et al. Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 2015; doi: /CMR