Bordetella pertussis: emerging epidemiology, diagnosis and management.

Bordetella pertussis is the causative agent of whooping cough, a major vaccine-preventable infection that has seen epidemic case numbers in recent years in Australia and worldwide. This manuscript reviews the performance of Bordetella diagnostic tests with a renewed focus on bacterial culture, phenotypic and genotypic susceptibility testing and molecular typing methods, against the backdrop of an observed increase in case numbers, emerging macrolide resistance and the development of pertactin-deficient strains. It highlights the need for improved diagnostics to detect and characterise macrolide resistance.