From cbc.ca

Dr. Vivien Suttorp didn't need a crystal ball back in 2013 to predict the impending measles outbreak that affected 42 people in southern Alberta — and she doesn't need one now to know that communities across southern Alberta will likely be hotbeds for further outbreaks.

One southern Alberta city, Medicine Hat, is currently seeing the second wave of a mumps outbreak in the city that seems to have originated from the local Western Hockey League team, the Medicine Hat Tigers.

It's not the only place where mumps are making a comeback in Canada, leading public health officials in several provinces to remind young adults to check if they need vaccination boosters.

Suttorp is the lead medical officer of health for Alberta Health Service's south zone.'s job. So when she's not busy dealing with an active outbreak like the mumps, she's primarily working proactively to get more people immunized.

"I was worried for specific communities, and it's the communities where we have almost annual vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks," she said.

In looking at the area's immunization data — which includes some of the lowest and highest rates in the province — overlaid with historical outbreak information, she is concerned about what they're currently dealing with, as well as what might come next. 

Whooping cough is here to stay

Rates of whooping cough, or pertussis, are highest in southern Alberta with more than 50 cases in 2016, and 53 cases in 2015. 

Whooping cough is no longer brought in from outside communities, Suttorp says: it's become endemic.

Pregnant women in the area are now regularly immunized for it in their third trimester, in the hopes that they will pass on enough immunity to their child to keep them safe until they start their own immunizations at two months of age.

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