whooping cough cases are on the rise across the country including here at home Toronto Public Health says cases have more than doubled this year compared to the 5-year pre-pandemic average the highly contagious virus brings with it a persistent cough and is of most concern for infants for more on the rapid increase of cases shalima Maharaj joins us live now shalima what is Toronto Public Health saying about all of this hey there Tracy well Toronto public health is not alone in sounding the alarm about a surge in whooping cough cases in fact there are officials right across the country who are doing the same because of rising cases in their individual jurisdictions now about 41% of the cases that were reported here in Toronto are among children between the ages of 10 and 14 and that is important because that's around an age where more children should be getting another dose of the vaccine now doctors call this a vaccine preventable disease they say people have to go in and get those shots what tends to happen is when there's an increase in infectious disease somewhere else it usually comes here too and according to Toronto Public Health the number of whooping cough cases is now more than double the pre-pandemic average during the pandemic we had a decline in cases because we were masking and social distancing and not interacting in the way that we usually do and once those Public Health measures were relaxed we started seeing more cases the public health agency is reporting 99 cases so far this year versus the pre-pandemic 5-year average of 38 also known as pessis whooping cough is a cyclical disease that Peaks every 2 to 6 years and it's typically the little ones that are most at risk for severe outcomes and infants can get very very sick if they get whooping cough uh they can uh be hospitalized and have a lot of complications and even die from the disease and vaccines are routinely given for this particular infection at two months 4 months 6 months 18 months and and then before school it's in fact mandatory for children attending school in Ontario unless they have a valid exemption and those who are pregnant are encouraged to get the vaccine in their third trimester its nickname is the 100 day cough it can cause a very prolonged coughing syndrome it's more pronounced in the youngest cases have also surged in Quebec with 11,677 reported today eclipsing its last peak in 2019 and New Brunswick declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province that we have had a decline in some of our routine vaccines that we get as children so we're now putting extra effort to ensure the community is aware and as a reminder as kids head back to class to make sure they're up to date on their immunizations now while Toddlers and infants are more at risk of those severe outcomes adults also need to make sure that they are up to date on their immunizations now some other symptoms that you should be keeping track of include a runny nose a mild fever as well as red watery eyes and of course watch out for that persistent cough for now I'll send it back to you in studio Tracy right shalima mahaj live on Hospital Row for us thank you shalima