disease information
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Mumps |
Mumps is a viral systemic disease. The virus replicates in the upper respiratory tract and in the regional lymph nodes. The disease then spreads via the circulatory system to distant organs, but the most frequently involved are the salivary glands, particularly the parotid.
Mumps incubation period is between 16-18 days. The first symptoms of mumps are non-specific and may include myalgia, anorexia, malaise, headache and low-grade fever. Parotitis usually occurs within the first two days. Swelling of the parotid gland is the most common manifestation of mumps and occurs in 30-40% of infected individuals. Parotitis can be one or two-sided with any combination of single or multiple salivary glands being affected. Approximately one third of infected individuals do not display salivary gland swelling, and in some of those cases the disease manifests itself as respiratory tract infection. Symptoms improve after a week and tend to resolve within ten days.
Among the unimmunized, mumps is primarily a childhood disease. Mumps infection in adults is often more severe and most mumps deaths, although rare, occur among adults. Orchitis is the most prevalent complication among adult males (50%). Other mumps complications are oophoritis (5% of adult women), pancreatitis, deafness and myocarditis.
Mumps is spread through airborne transmission and through contact with saliva and infected droplet nuclei.
Patients with mumps are infectious for up to nine days after the onset of illness and should be excluded from social events, school or employment activities for that period of time. Vaccination of under-immunized and unimmunized individuals has been shown to reduce the risk of transmission of the disease.
In 2006, several states experienced an epidemic of mumps that began among college students in Iowa in December and involved at least 12 additional states and resulted in spread to several thousand people. Also, Canada is experiencing an epidemic of mumps that started among university students in Nova Scotia and spread as far west as Vancouver.
Starting in September 2007, Maine experienced an outbreak of mumps which was characterized by patients with a mean age of 34 years. In total, 26 confirmed cases and 74 suspect cases were identified. There were reported cases on 3 college campuses, but only one had an identifiable cluster (n=4). Six people were hospitalized. Thirty-one percent of those affected were vaccinated with a two-dose series of MMR. A large proportion of cases (38%) were missing vaccination information, which is not surprising given the older age of the patients.
Source: Reportable Infectious Diseases in Maine: 2007 Summary
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