The medical profession pertussis Cases in Quebec.
More and more teenagers and other school-age children are coming to the Montreal Children's Hospital with the disease.
“We're seeing this more and more often in the lab,” said Dr. Jesse Papenburg, an infectious disease specialist at Montreal Children's Hospital. “More and more tests are coming back positive for pertussis, and we're seeing it in the emergency room as well.”
According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health, 1,171 cases have been confirmed so far in 2024, with another 305 suspected cases. Twenty of the confirmed cases are children under the age of 1. No deaths have been announced.
“Through laboratory testing, we have seen an increase in cases, especially among adolescents,” Papenburg said. “Adolescents and other older school children are suffering from whooping cough.”
Sometimes pertussis is also called “whooping cough.” Whooping cough starts with cold symptoms, but then the cough becomes persistent and can lead to further complications.
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“It is an unpleasant illness, but it heals faster with antibiotics or on its own. It occurs mainly in infants and can cause complications leading to hospitalization or even death, especially in the first few months of life,” Papenburg said.
In recent weeks, there has been a surge in cases of whooping cough in Europe. The spread here is not as rampant. In Quebec, most cases are in the Chaudière-Appalaches and Estrie regions. Montreal has confirmed 57 cases since the beginning of the year.
The last outbreak of the disease in Quebec was in 2019, when there were 1,269 cases.
“It’s typical to see these cyclical epidemics every four or five years or so,” Papenburg explained.
Cardiologist Dr. Christopher Labos believes there's another culprit.
“I think a lot of this is due to the fact that we’re seeing an overall decline in vaccination rates for many pediatric conditions,” he said, noting a drop in routine vaccination rates during COVID and the difficulty many people have in accessing health care without a family doctor.
Whooping cough can affect people of all ages, but is most dangerous to infants, who should be protected both before and after birth, Papenburg said.
“There is a very important reminder for pregnant women in their third trimester to get the whooping cough vaccine, because it is best to get the first dose of the vaccine before the baby is two months old,” Papenburg explained.
The infectious disease expert said he is not too concerned about case levels right now because this type of increase occurs once or twice every decade.
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