Whooping cough is an infectious disease that can be caused by coughing of another person on children, babies and adults which is also the other name of pertussis. When the pertussis bacteria is exposed to the human body in normal cases, whooping cough usually starts developing after 7-10 days of exposure that may change as per the immunity and low immunity people may get infection in three days whereas the high immunity people may take twenty one days.

The most commonly found symptom of pertussis is persistent cough. As such persistent cough is not the only symptom that can differentiate pertussis, but there are other symptoms like those caused by the common cold and often look similar to the pertussis. The other symptoms are irritation in nose, eye, and throat; mild fever; dry cough; stuffy or runny nose; and sneezing.

The condition gets worse after one or two weeks when the cough associated with pertussis produces more thick mucus causing more irritation in the throat. Paroxysms often called as the coughing spells results in breathing problems when they last for several minutes and create problem in inhaling breath causing the typical whooping sound.

The chronic coughs that are related to pertussis can last for more than four to eight weeks causing irritation and breathing problems to the sufferer. If the persistent coughing continues, it may get difficult for the sufferer of pertussis to complete normal sleeping hours as this will disturb the sleep of the person. The pertussis bacterium affects most on the people with lower immunity, especially the children and babies rather than the adolescents and adults.

The symptoms of whooping cough may differ depending upon the age of patient for example a baby less than six months of age may not get whooping characteristic. The experience of vomiting and sleeping deficiency is found more in children than the adults and adolescents.          

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