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Mumps staging a comeback
There’s another health issue to consider, if you’re agonising about the MMR vaccination for your infant. Mumps is making a comeback – Jane Bartlett reports.According to figures just released from the Public Health Laboratory Service, cases of mumps, the viral infection which typically affects children, have doubled in the past two years. In 2000 there were 654 confirmed cases in England and Wales, compared to 358 in 1999, and 121 in 1998. Stockport, Bradford and Northern Ireland have been particularly badly hit.
In recent years we’ve almost forgotten mumps. Vaccination has a 90% protection rate, which has made it rare, but it used to be very common. You may remember suffering as a child with the swollen glands and stiff neck. Wherever children gathered in groups, parotitis, otherwise known as mumps, could be found doing the rounds, especially in the winter and the spring.
Most of the current cases of mumps are in older children, aged between 12 and 18, who have missed out on the MMR vaccination. Other cases are amongst those children, who have only had one of the two MMR jabs needed to give full protection. However, health officials fear that, the recent drop in numbers of infants receiving the MMR vaccination, will lead to a further upsurge in mumps. About 12% of parents are refusing to give their children the triple dose vaccine, for fear of possible links to autism and bowel disease.
So just how dangerous is mumps?
It’s caused by a virus similar to influenza. It can be caught easily through coughs and sneezes, or simply chatting to someone, or coming into contact with contaminated objects, such as toys and cups. It’s not as contagious as chicken pox or measles, though. Symptoms often don’t appear until 14 to 25 days after exposure. A child is thought to be infectious from three days before signs of sickness, to the forth day of active disease. Stopping the silent spread of mumps around the nursery or classroom is like trying to contain foot and mouth – a formidable challenge. In fact, before vaccination, most children used to get mumps – it was impossible to avoid.
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