Mumps Update

  • Date:     March 10, 2017
    To:         School Nurses
    From:    Sietske de Fijter, MS, State Epidemiologist and Chief, Bureau of Infectious Diseases
    Topic:    Increased Mumps Cases in Ohio
     
    The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) is seeing an increased number of mumps cases.  Twenty-seven cases of mumps have been reported in 2017, compared to seven reported mumps cases for the same time period in 2016.  Twenty-one of the current cases are associated with two outbreaks in Ohio.  A community outbreak in Mercer County has 18 reported cases and the University of Dayton in Montgomery County has an outbreak of 3 reported cases.  In addition, there are several large mumps outbreaks currently occurring throughout the US, in both university and community settings in various states, including Arkansas and Washington.  More information is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at http:// www.cdc.gov/mumps/outbreaks.html.
     
    Mumps symptoms include headache, fever, muscle aches, tiredness, loss of appetite and swollen glands, especially in the jaw area.  Mumps may cause complications such as deafness, meningitis and swelling of the testicles, ovaries and brain.  Mumps is most infectious in the several days before and after parotitis onset and patients usually become symptomatic 16-18 days after exposure to an infected individual.  Please consider mumps in anyone with mumps-like illness regardless of vaccination status, particularly with exposures to affected universities and communities.  CDC recommends that a buccal or oral swab specimen and a blood specimen be collected from all patients with clinical features compatible with mumps.  
     
    Just as a reminder, the Ohio school requirement is that all children entering school must have received two doses of MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.  The Ohio Administrative Code (OAC 3701-3-13, (P)) states that “a person with mumps shall be isolated, including exclusion from school or child care center, for five days after the onset of parotid swelling.”
     
    Exclusion of susceptible students from schools affected by a mumps outbreak should be considered among the means to control mumps outbreaks.  Once vaccinated, students can be readmitted to school.  Students who have been exempted from mumps vaccine for medical, religious, or other reasons should be excluded through at least 25 days after the onset of parotitis in the last person with mumps if an outbreak is associated with a school. 
     
    Please report mumps cases to the appropriate local health departments (where the student resides). https://odhgateway.odh.ohio.gov/lhdinformationsystem/Directory/GetMyLHD
     
    For more information on mumps, please visit the Infectious Disease Control Manual found at:  http://www.odh.ohio.gov/pdf/IDCM/mumps.pdf.
     
    If you have any questions regarding mumps, please contact ODH’s Bureau of Infectious Diseases, Vaccine-Preventable Disease Epidemiology Program at (614) 995-5599.