Whooping cough or cold? What symptoms to look for amid surge [Video]

Whooping cough is making a surge in Canada at a time when schools are reopening and ahead of the fall respiratory illness season.

Some provinces — Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick in particular — have reported sharp increases in whooping cough cases compared with pre-pandemic averages.

Whooping cough, which is a bacterial illness, “can be seasonal” as it peaks in late summer and early fall, said Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist in Toronto.

With kids returning to school, experts warn that cases could rise even higher.

“I think that now that kids are going back to school and some of the kids are not completely vaccinated, I expect to see an increase,” Banerji said in an interview with Global News on Tuesday.

“We’ve already had huge numbers, four times the normal rate of whooping cough that we normally see across Canada and really around the world, but I think that might even go up as kids go back to school.”