There is some concern in the medical community about a rise in whooping cough cases in Quebec.
A higher number of teens and other school-aged children are showing up at Montreal Children’s Hospital with the disease.
“This is something that we’re seeing in our lab with a greater frequency,” said Dr. Jesse Papenburg, an infectious diseases specialist at Montreal Children’s Hospital. “More tests are coming back positive for whooping cough, and we’re also seeing it in the emergency departments.”
According to the latest health ministry statistics, there have been 1,171 confirmed cases so far in 2024, with 305 others considered probable. Twenty of the confirmed cases are among children under one year in age. No deaths have been declared.
“Through our laboratory detection, we’re seeing an increase in cases, especially in teenagers,” said Papenburg. “Teenagers and other older school children are presenting with whooping cough.”
It’s sometimes called the “100-day cough.” Whooping cough starts with cold symptoms but then the cough just drags on and on, and could lead to further complications.
“It’s an unpleasant illness, but it does resolve either quicker with antibiotics or on its own. It’s primarily in young infants that it can, cause complications leading to hospitalization or even death, especially in those first few months of life,” said Papenburg.
In Europe there’s been an explosion of whooping cough cases in recent weeks. The spread is not nearly as rampant here. In Quebec the most cases are in the Chaudière-Appalaches and Estrie regions. Montreal has 57 confirmed cases since the start of the year.
The last time the disease flared up in Quebec was in 2019. That year there were 1,269 cases.
“It’s quite typical that we have these cyclical epidemics every four or five years or so,” Papenburg explained.
Cardiologist Dr. Christopher Labos thinks there’s also another culprit at play.
“I think a lot of this can be attributed to the fact that we have been seeing dips in vaccination rates across the board for many pediatric illnesses,” he said, pointing to a dip in routine vaccinations during COVID, and the difficulty many people have accessing the health system without a family doctor.
Whooping cough can affect people of all ages but is most dangerous for babies. Papenburg says they should be protected even before they’re born and just after.
“There is a very important reminder for pregnant persons in their third trimester to get vaccinated against whooping cough, because that is the best way to protect babies before they’re eligible for their first dose of vaccine at age two months,” Papenburg explained.
The infectious disease expert says he is not overly concerned about the case levels right now, because that these types of increases happen once or twice per decade.
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