Sharp rise in whooping cough cases reported in several provinces

CTV National News: Whooping cough cases rising Garrett Barry on the measures N.L. is taking to help curb the rise in whooping cough cases.

Whooping cough cases are on the rise in Canada, with some provinces reporting sharp increases compared to pre-pandemic averages.

More than 11,670 cases have been reported in Quebec so far this year, a significant jump from the annual average of 562 cases between 2015 and 2019.

The majority of whooping cough patients are between the ages of 10 and 14, a spokesperson for Quebec's health ministry said in an email to The Canadian Press.

The last peak of whooping cough activity in the province was in 2019, when 1,269 cases were reported, the email said.

As of June, Ontario has seen 470 whooping cough cases, compared to the five-year average of 98, a provincial dashboard shows.

Toronto has reported 99 cases so far this year, while Ottawa has seen 76 – more than double the pre-pandemic annual averages recorded in those cities.

These figures come on the heels of a whooping cough outbreak declared last week in New Brunswick with 141 cases reported so far, exceeding the five-year average of 34 cases per year.

The highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease also known as pertussis is on the rise across Canada, Canada's chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said last week.

The illness can be very serious and even life-threatening, especially for very young children, Tam said in an interview Friday.

"We call it the 100-day cough," she said. "It can lead to (a) significant amount of coughing for a very long time."

Whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years, public health officials say.

It's a persistent cough that begins with cold-like symptoms and evolves over several weeks to include coughing spells that often end with a “whoop” sound when an infected person is catching their breath.

A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere, prompting the Pan American Health Organization to issue an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.

With files from Nicole Ireland in Toronto

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 27, 2024