it's something no parent wants to hear The Telltale sound of whooping cough there's a characteristic uh uh cough that's really quite intense that can be followed by a whoop uh or a bit of a barking cough caused by a bacteria called bordatella pertusis this highly contagious infection can also lead to pneumonia or even brain damage it's really children young children infants especially those in the first six months of life that are at highest risk of any sort of complication requiring either hospitalization or even death and these potentially deadly infections are surging right now in parts of Canada the most dramatic spike is in Quebec more than 11,000 cases so far this year up from a pre-pandemic average of less than 600 Ontario has seen close to 500 cases this year nearly five times its annual average while New Brunswick is also reporting one of its biggest outbreaks in years with more than 140 infections to date it could have been any any anywhere that she could have gotten it from whooping cough also surged over the last year across Europe and in the US this New Jersey mom was terrified when her 10-year-old daughter recently caught it she coughed I want to say from 400 a.m. until 8:00 a.m. so what's behind the sudden Spike pus is out breaks EB and flow over a 3 to 5e cycle so part of the reason may just come down to timing but experts say the covid-19 pandemic also played a key role it's not surprising to me to see increases in protest this post pandemic when we know that there was Major disruption of routine childhood vaccination so Lauren aside from the routine shots in childhood are there other times when people can or should be getting this vaccine absolutely you can get a booster dose as an adult and that's particular particularly important during pregnancy because doctors say then you're passing that Immunity on to your baby so this is seems to be really important right now because what we're hearing from Quebec is a lot of the infants who are being hospitalized or even in icus are the ones who don't have that crucial protection Ian Lauren py reporting from Toronto