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More than 100 confirmed or probable cases of mumps have been diagnosed at Temple University. An epidemic that began with only a few cases in February continues to spread on the Philadelphia campus.
Officials from the municipal health department believe that the neighborhoods in which students live have accelerated the spread of the disease and are waiting for more cases to be diagnosed.
Although the United States has largely eradicated mumps and other highly contagious viral diseases such as measles, sporadic epidemics have been reported in pockets of the country, largely due to so-called anti-vaxxers or parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. the children. Students are generally susceptible to outbreaks of all kinds of contagious diseases, including some strains of meningitis and influenza.
The Philadelphia Department of Health announced Monday 18 confirmed cases of mumps and 90 probable cases associated with the outbreak. The university has already organized a free vaccination clinic, administering mumps booster vaccines to nearly 5,000 students and staff from last week. Other students and faculty have been vaccinated at the campus health center, which still offers vaccines, said Ray Betzner, spokesman for the university.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend two doses of MMR vaccine (which means measles, mumps and rubella and protects against all three diseases) during childhood. The first shot is usually given to a child aged 15 to 15 months and a second call between 4 and 6 years old, usually around the time most children start going to school.
Mumps is well known for its characteristic swelling of the cheeks and neck, but other symptoms range from fever and headache to pain and loss of appetite. In some cases, deafness may occur and more dangerous complications may occur after puberty, including inflammation of the testes or ovaries.
A person who has received a single dose of MMR vaccine has a 78% chance of not getting mumps and 88% a chance of prevention with the second dose, according to the CDC. However, health officials said that while measles and rubella vaccine components are potent, protection against mumps tends to fade as the population ages. Few people get a third reminder, they said.
Mumps spreads through sputum and phlegm, so students who often hang out in classrooms or dormitories or share drinks and food are particularly susceptible, said Susan Even, president of the Advisory Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases of the American College Health Association and Executive Director. from the University of Missouri to the Columbia Student Health Center. The symptoms usually do not manifest at least two weeks after infection, but it can take up to a month, allowing the virus to spread without being detected, he added.
According to Jim Garrow, spokesman for the city's health department, the outbreak at Temple would have been caused by a person who traveled abroad. Garrow did not identify if the person was a student. Mumps is a common disease in other countries, such as Japan, where people are not routinely vaccinated against this disease.
The university first announced the outbreak on February 28 with only a few HIV-positive students. More and more cases were confirmed during the month of March. An online petition, which has since been withdrawn, urged university administrators to close the campus until the elimination of the epidemic. Temple officials did not consider this option and the city's health department did not recommend it as it would not stop the spread of the disease, Betzner said. A visitor on campus and even a student would not necessarily catch mumps simply in the presence of someone who contracted it, he said.
According to Betzner, only about 20% of cases occurred among campus students. Students can ask for cleaning products for their dormitory if they are afraid of contracting the disease, he said. And students whose roommates or companions in a row have contracted mumps may change rooms. The health department of the city said that sick people should avoid healthy people for at least five days.
The university does not require new students to be vaccinated against MMR, but administrators have since revised its policy and will require students to be vaccinated as of the next academic year, Betzner added. The CDC recommends a third booster shot only to people living in the outbreak area.
Even in many colleges and universities, students must receive the vaccine before going to campus. She noted, however, that some institutions do not have the resources to access the medical records of each first-year student.
University campuses have already experienced mumps outbreaks. More than 420 cases of mumps were diagnosed at the University of Missouri in 2016. All infected students had received the two mandatory doses of MMR prescribed by the university. More than 450 cases of mumps have been diagnosed at the University of Iowa and around 2015-2016.
Although all cases are different, she does not attribute the Temple epidemic to a rise in anti-vaccine sentiment, but rather to the circumstances in which she attends college. Increasing cases of measles throughout the country have been linked to the movement, and some states have introduced laws requiring parents to vaccinate their children.
"Even with a single dose of vaccine, the complications are much less serious," he said. "I think it's important. There's nothing like complications before the vaccine era, before the 1960s, and the mumps vaccine … we hear about a time when no one was vaccinated, and we do not want to come back to that. "
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