Diseases that were prominent years ago are making an unwanted comeback today.

New Brunswick has been dealing with three of them in less than two months: measles, whooping cough and gonorrhea.

The outbreaks leave public health officials working around the clock.

“As a practicing ER doctor for 16 years, I've never even seen a case of the measles,” said Dr. Serge Melanson, who is also President of the Medical Society of New Brunswick. "So that really speaks to how unusual it is.”

As rare as it is, this measles outbreak has had some company.

Whooping cough cases in the Fredericton area have increased and now stand at 23.

Gonorrhea cases have doubled to 20.

“Although it may seem a little odd, in terms with how they’ve clustered recently, but I think when you've got a well-run public health department, you can expect that they're going to be quite vigilant about those things,” Melanson said.

Well run -- but likely a little burned out these days.

“I think pretty much everyone in public health in the Saint John region is working on this,” said Dr. Jennifer Russell, New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. “And we're bringing in other resources from other regions as necessary.”

Officials with public health in the Saint John area are working around the clock on measles. In Fredericton, the focus is on whooping cough.

Public health has also launched an ad campaign educating New Brunswickers on gonorrhea.

“There's never a time when public health is not actively working on the core mandate, as well as being prepared for any kind of outbreak or any kind of emergency so sometimes we do exercises and train for these types of things,” said Russell.

But after all is said and done, and these outbreaks are considered over, will work ramp up on trying to prevent future ones?

“As of late, we have recognized things like vaccine hesitancy,” Melanson said. “So, folks that are a little reluctant to get vaccinated for whatever reason, so it's incumbent on the medical profession to inform our patients and inform our citizens of the value and the importance of being vaccinated.”

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Brown.