Health Journal Entry

Mumps Outbreak Hits Midwest (April 18, 2006)

The biggest U.S. outbreak of mumps in twenty years is striking the Midwest. The childhood disease is infecting people in Iowa and seven other states. In Iowa, about 1,000 cases have been reported since December.

In a typical year, only 200 to 300 cases of mumps appear in the entire country, with about five cases in Iowa. About half of the cases in the state have been among students living in college dormitories. The outbreak started on a college campus and spread quickly through densely packed dorms.

Mumps is a flu-like infection caused by a virus and spread by coughing or sneezing. Symptoms include a painful swelling of the neck. A vaccine can help prevent it but there is no treatment once a person becomes infected. A single dose of the vaccine is about 80 percent effective, while a double dose works 95 percent of the time. Since 1991, Iowa state law has required that all public school children get the double dose.

Since the mumps vaccine was introduced in the United States in 1967, the number of cases has gone down by 99 percent. Before the vaccine, nearly everyone came down with mumps at one time or another, with 90 percent of the cases in children under the age of 15.

Health officials say the outbreak could have started by someone traveling from Great Britain where there is also a mumps outbreak. The strain of the virus is identical in both outbreaks.