Whooping cough, also known as pertussis or the '100 day cough', kills around 300,000 people per year, but is one of the most common diseases that can be prevented by vaccine. Children in Britain are vaccinated several times before starting school. But, scientists at Oxford University have discovered that these vaccines might not be doing enough. When examining children seeing their GP about a persistent cough, one in five of them actually had a case of whooping cough, including children who had been vaccinated against it. Kay Wang, who lead the study, told Chris Smith more... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists