Whooping cough warnings continue amid low vaccination rates in rural Alberta

Alberta Health Services is urging Albertans to protect themselves from pertussis after an increase in cases in Okotoks, Alta. and the Calgary Zone in recent months.

According to provincial data, there’s a big difference in vaccination rates between rural and urban communities for whooping cough.

Seventeen cases of pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, have been confirmed in the Okotoks area since November, including one person who was hospitalized. AHS said all the cases were “locally acquired.”

Another 22 cases were identified in other parts of the Calgary Zone during the same period, bringing the total to 39 cases.

So far this year, 120 lab-confirmed cases have been detected in the province.

Currently, the pertussis vaccine is free for children, people who are in the third trimester of pregnancy and adults who have not had a tetanus booster in the past 10 years. The pertussis vaccine also protects against tetanus and diphtheria.

AHS says 86 per cent of outbreak and non-outbreak-associated cases were from patients who were not immunized or partially immunized.

“Think hard about who in your family is vulnerable. Do you have a baby? That’s a big deal when it comes to whooping cough in terms of mortality and severity of disease. You need to protect the baby and the best way is getting everybody vaccinated including pregnant women,” said Dr. Cora Constantinescu, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Alberta Children’s Hospital.

The latest rash of outbreaks began more than a year ago in the Alberta South Zone.

The most recent Alberta vaccination numbers show that 70.73 per cent of children have a fourth dose of the pertussis vaccine by age 2.

Calgary had the highest rate at 80 per cent.

“People used to talk about vaccines being victims of their own success because we don’t see these diseases – well now we are,”  Constantinescu said.

She said family physicians are a key source of information for parents.

“Engaging them and educating them and supporting them as they support their patients is crucial because they are that key to trust with a lot of our vaccine hesitant families,” the physician said.

She said she is worried that family doctors may not have the time and resources to talk to parents at length about the importance of vaccines.

“Family physicians are already overworked and overburdened. The vaccine conversation is typically not a quick conversation. There’s no good compensation for that for our front-line primary care physicians,” Constantinescu said.

It’s not just the pertussis vaccination that’s lower in rural areas – it’s also the HPV vaccine, which is given at schools.

“I think a lot of it has to do with education around the benefits of the vaccine and its direct link to helping to prevent cervical cancer,” said Dr. Gregg Nelson,  professor and chair of gynecologic oncology at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine.

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