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Table 2 Summarization of the major differences between wP vaccine and aP vaccine

From: The Pertussis resurgence: putting together the pieces of the puzzle

Whole cell pertussis vaccine (wP)

Acellular pertussis vaccine (aP)

-Blocked disease and infection to a much higher extent than aP

-Probably did this by blocking carriage (though studies were never done to prove that hypothesis).

-Blocked disease but did not block infection.

-Experimentally do not block carriage and permit transmission from asymptomatic to vaccine naïve animals. This observation closely mimics the cocooning strategy, and suggests a reason why it had failed to perform as anticipated.

-Epidemiologically appears to offer herd effect (though not to a level sufficient to halt transmission entirely).

-Epidemiologically offers minimal or no herd effect.

-Induces robust mucosal immunity.

-Seemingly absent of mucosal immunity induction.

-Induces robust Th17 responses.

-Induces Th2 response.