Mumps epidemic in the mid-west; biggest in decades

[TechBear_Seattle]

Mumps Cases in Iowa Climb to 815

DES MOINES, Iowa - The number of reported cases of mumps this year has climbed to 815 in Iowa, the state at the center of the nation's biggest epidemic in almost two decades.

Iowa's caseload jumped more than 200 in the past week, though some of the increase consisted of older cases that had been stuck in a backlog of paperwork, the Iowa Department of Public Health said Tuesday.

The epidemic has hit nine states. Nebraska has reported 110 mumps cases. Cases have also been reported in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

It is the nation's biggest mumps epidemic since 269 cases were reported in Kansas in 1988-89, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The article continues at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060418/ap_on_he_me/mumps_iowa

[shenmue]

1. I had mumps...

'round about 1984. Trust me, it is nasty.

[Chipper Chat]

2. I had 'em in 1946. Part of growing up as a kid.

I remember a big red sign in our window that screamed "MUMPS".
No visitors for a week or so!

[RebelOne]

3. Never had them.

I doubt that I could get them now, as a person is supposedly immune after the age of 40.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. There is no such thing as automatic immunity

Mumps is a nuisance to the young, very serious and occasionally fatal in adults. The only way to become immune is to have the vaccine or the disease itself.

[havocmom]

6. LOL Don't get your hopes up on that one.

Know a couple of gents who got mumps after 40. They were NOT amused.

Am wondering about the shots they give little kids... Not what they were cracked up to be? How many more vaccines are being shown to not provide the immunity they were promoted as giving?

Anybody have info on whether we were supposed to give booster shots every decade or so?

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. A lot of people don't immunize their children, especially in rural areas

And these children are the ones who end up harboring the disease for everyone else to catch. With the last major epidemic in the late 80s... that would have been almost exactly one generation ago, which is probably not a coincidence.

[greenman3610]

9. two thirds of these new victims have immunization

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. I didn't see that in the article, but I'll take your word on it

Very likely, then, the epidemic is a slightly different strain than what the immunization covers. While some viruses (like influenza) mutate rapidly and constantly, others are much more stable. That doesn't mean they don't mutate.

Crimeny, that is a scarey thought: a mumps epidemic that bypasses previous immunity. :scared:


(For reference: the Wikipedia article about mumps

[mzteris]

16. hmmm - this happened in 2005, too.

On July 26, 2005, the Sullivan County Health Department (SCHD) and the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) were notified of a cluster of cases of parotitis among campers and staff members at a summer camp. An investigation conducted by NYSDOH identified 31 cases of mumps, likely introduced by a camp counselor who had traveled from the United Kingdom (UK) and had not been vaccinated for mumps. This report summarizes the results of the subsequent investigation by NYSDOH, which determined that, even in a population with 96% vaccination coverage, as was the case with participants in the summer camp, a mumps outbreak can result from exposure to virus imported from a country with an ongoing mumps epidemic.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5507a2.htm


hmmmm - interesting bit here (from above site) : mumps vaccine effectiveness can be <85% in outbreak settings.

Both triggered by UK resident, too. I wonder if the strain is different?



edit to add: Also in 1990: "Between October 3 and November 23, 1990, clinical mumps developed in 54 students (attack rate, 18%), 53 of whom had been vaccinated. Most cases (40 <77%> of 52) occurred 12 to 20 days after a school-wide pep rally. "


and in 1983: From October 19, through December 14, 1983, 63 cases of mumps were reported from six schools in a school district in Atlantic County, New Jersey. These 63 cases are a 40% increase over the previous year's total of mumps among schoolchildren in the state.

. . . The index patient was a 12-year-old, unvaccinated, sixth-grade boy attending Elementary School A.

Forty-eight (76%) cases occurred in Elementary School A, for an overall attack rate of 5% (48/933). Twenty-five (52%) of these 48 cases occurred among the sixth grade students (Table 1). The attack rate in grade 6 (15%) was five times that in grades K-5 (3%) (p 0.001) (Table 1). . . Sixth graders were nearly seven times more likely to be susceptible to mumps than students in other grades (p 0.001) (Table 2).

Since initial reports suggested that many mumps cases occurred in children known to have been vaccinated, a vaccine efficacy study was done.* The sixth grade was used to estimate vaccine efficacy, because it represented 52% of the school's cases and had enough unvaccinated and vaccinated students to make calculation of attack rates in these two groups meaningful

. . . Vaccine efficacy was estimated to be 91% for sixth graders, with a 95% confidence interval of 77%-93% (Table 3). The attack rate in the vaccinated children in the sixth grade was 4% and fell within the 5%-10% primary vaccine failure rate observed in clinical trials (3).


. . .Since the attack rate for each grade was directly proportional to the percentage of unvaccinated students, the higher attack rate for sixth graders most likely reflected the fact that sixth graders were not covered by the law. Compliance with the law, as reflected in vaccine coverage rates, was greater than 95%. Thus, poor compliance with the school vaccination law did not lead to this outbreak. Rather, it was those grades not covered by the school law that provided the susceptibles that allowed the disease to spread. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000379.htm

[Bridget Burke]

8. Although this is not a problem for ladies....

Grown men who get mumps can have testicular involvement. I've heard it can be quite painful.

There is NO automatic immunity.

[mzteris]

12. mumps can affect the ovaries as well.... n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

4. I'm in NY and am recovering from an illness that seemed to mimic

the mumps. I had the mumps as a child on one side and this was just so similar.

[havocmom]

10. Had mumps on both sides as a child... THREE times

That sent some doctors back to their books. What we were told is that there are several sets of glands which can be involved and if not all are involved, you can keep getting it until they ALL are.

The third time was a LOT worse than the first two. I was about 12 and that bout was hellish. Would guess the older one is, the worse it feels.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

19. I cannot imagine having to go through this three times! Hugs to you!

I don't recall feeling so awful when I was a kid. I must have been about 8 then. The pain that accompanied it this time was indeed hellish. I almost used a whole huge bottle of Tylenol. I then switched to Advil which worked better but did a number on my stomach.

[mzteris]

13. why do you say "mimic"

Are you SURE it wasn't the mumps?

Many doctors no longer recognize the symptoms.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

17. I say mimic as I did have symptoms of the mumps but being

in NY and don't have a clue how I would have been exposed to them., Is it possible that I received it from mail? I have an Internet Biz and receive mail from all parts of the country.

BTW... I am one of the millions of Americans without health care, and didn't seek the assistance of a doctor. If it continued for a few more days (symptoms lasted a week), I would have gone into a walk-in Med office like Docs.

[mzteris]

21. do you go out?

The grocery store, restaurants, parks - you could have been exposed anywhere there are people.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

22. Yes, I do go out but not a heck of a lot, but yes, the grocery store,

post office, other errands. I guess it could have been contracted in any of those places. Luckily my kids are ok. They had their full set of MMR vaccinations.

[EFerrari]

15. I hope you're feeling better. We had a similar situation

with chicken pox. The kids and their dad got them and I didn't. Then, a couple of years later, we ALL got them. It was very strange.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

18. Thank you for your wishes sfexpat and yes, I'm feeling 95% better.

Just a little wiped out from it all.

As to the Chicken Pox... I don't know how severe the first wave was in your home, but I have recall when my sons got them that if the syptoms aren't too strong, it is possible to get the chicken pox again. :hi:

[SheilaT]

14. My guess is that

the vaccine simply isn't as effective as the real thing. Which is a huge dilemma that's not really addressed, in my opinion. Yes, the real thing (and I'm talking any and all viral illnesses here) can be quite nasty and some are often fatal (like smallpox) but the immunity conferred is often permanent. Obviously, mass vaccinations are better than everyone getting the disease, now that we have vaccines available, but we're always going to face random outbreaks like this.

I have a son at K-State, and I haven't yet learned if they're having mumps out there.

Interestingly enough, my son (both of them actually) have an auto-immune disorder, alopecia areata, which causes hair loss. A side effect seems to be a hyper-active immune system, and they rarely get sick from anything at all. Just never get the usual colds or flus or other viral illnesses that normally make the rounds. So I rather expect even if there's an outbreak at his school, that he won't get the mumps. He did have his immunizations, which should also help.

[Atman]

20. That must explain THIS!

Look at that swelling! Yikes!



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