| Methods |
Randomised controlled trial |
| Participants |
Inclusion criteria: children aged 6 months to 16 years and had either culture‐proven B. pertussis infection or cough illness suspected by a physician to be pertussis
Exclusion criteria: children with known allergy to any macrolide, immunodeficiency, had hepatic, renal, cardiovascular, haematologic disease or chronic lung disease, had concomitant use of theophylline, phenytoin, digitalis, etc. |
| Interventions |
Treatment group: azithromycin 10 mg/kg (maximum: 500 mg) by mouth on first day of treatment and 5 mg/kg (maximum daily dose: 250 mg) once daily on the second to fifth days of treatment. Control group: 3 doses of erythromycin estolate (40 mg/kg/day: maximum 1 g) by mouth for 10 days |
| Outcomes |
Microbiological eradication, bacteriological relapse, compliance, presence of clinical symptoms, treatment‐associated adverse events |
| Notes |
Immunisation status: mean previous number of pertussis vaccine doses received was 4.4 and 4.1 for erythromycin and azithromycin treatment group respectively |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
Low risk |
Method of randomisation: computer‐generated randomisation list |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
Low risk |
Low risk |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
High risk |
Group assignment was not blinded after randomisation |
