The Southern Health region is seeing cases of pertussis - more commonly known as whooping cough - approach pre-pandemic levels.
"It's not at the point where we'd say it's an outbreak," says Dr. Davinder Singh, a medical health officer with the regional health authority. "But it's at the upper end of what we had seen before the pandemic in terms of years where there was a high number of pertussis cases in the region."
In a news release sent out last week Friday, at the time there were 28 confirmed cases in the province, mostly in the Southern Health region. That has increased to 35 cases and again, almost all of those cases are in the Southern Health region, adds Dr. Singh.
Like other respiratory infections, whooping cough is a bacterium that can be transmitted from person-to-person through coughing or sneezing. Young infants under the age of twelve months - and even more so under six months - are the most susceptible, but it also poses a serious risk to pregnant women.
"If they're in their third trimester, they can pass it on to their newborns depending on the timing of the infection," explains Dr. Singh.
Dr. Singh says the measures taken to limit the spread of COVID-19 and influenza over the last few years likely had a strong impact on whooping cough as well.
"We didn't have any cases of pertussis in 2021 and in 2022," he says. "That is an infection that is spread mainly through respiratory droplets that we're all familiar with, with close contact with people that are infected and symptomatic. And now that we are in a period where we have less restrictions, we're seeing a return to some of those respiratory infections that we had seen prior to the pandemic."
Dr. Singh points out, antibiotics are extremely helpful in getting rid of bacteria that cause pertussis, making it less likely to transmit to others.
"People should be taking it quite seriously," says Dr. Singh. "Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease. We have a highly effective vaccine for it. Roughly 20 to 30 per cent of infants under the age of one with pertussis could be admitted to the hospital. About one of every 400 hospitalized infants could die as the result of pneumonia or brain damage. The risk is highest for infants under the age of two months, but also still high under the age of six months and up to the age of one year. After that, the risk does decrease but you can still have complications."
As noted in the release, symptoms for infants can include a severe cough (some do not cough), choking or vomiting after coughing, feeding poorly and having difficulty breathing.
Dr. Singh recommends that people check their immunization records and the routine immunization schedule on the Manitoba Health website to see if they are up to date.
"For infants and young children, they would routinely get three doses and then a booster dose at 18 months of age, and another between the ages of four and six. We also have a dose that's provided in our school immunization program in Grade 8. And it's recommended for adults who have not previously had a protective immunization to get one with their next booster dose for tetanus."
Pregnant women are strongly advised to get vaccinated with every pregnancy between the ages of 27 and 32 weeks of gestation for their infant.
Families with young children or pregnant women should talk to their healthcare provider, pharmacist or local public health-healthy living office about getting immunized or call Health Links at 1-888-315-9257.