[two_third]
A routine second dose of MMR vaccine, administered a minimum of 28 days after the first dose, is recommended for adults who:
• are students in postsecondary educational institutions,
• work in a health care facility, or
• plan to travel internationally.
Anyone vaccinated before 1979 with either killed mumps vaccine or mumps vaccine of unknown type who are at high risk for mumps infection (e.g., persons who are working in a health care facility) should be considered for revaccination with 2 doses of MMR vaccine.
What is mumps?
Mumps is a contagious disease caused by the mumps virus. Mumps is spread by droplets of saliva or mucus from the mouth, nose, or throat of an infected person, usually when that person coughs, sneezes or talks. Items used by an infected person, such as cups or soft drink cans, can also be contaminated with the virus. The virus may spread to others if those items are shared. In addition, the virus may spread when someone with mumps touches items or surfaces without washing their hands and someone else then touches the same surface and rubs their mouth or nose.
Before the routine vaccination program was introduced in the United States, mumps was a common illness in infants, children and young adults. Because most people have now been vaccinated, mumps has become a rare disease in the United States. However, anyone who is not immune (from either previous mumps infection or from vaccination) can get mumps. The MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine is the best way to prevent mumps. Two doses of the vaccine are more effective against mumps than one dose and prevent most, but not all, cases of mumps and mumps complications.
What are the symptoms of Mumps?
Mumps typically starts with a few days of fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, and loss of appetite, and is followed by swelling and tenderness of salivary glands (glands under the ears or jaw on one or both sides of the face). Most mumps transmission likely occurs before the salivary glands begin to swell and within the 5 days after the swelling begins. Therefore, CDC recommends isolating mumps patients for 5 days after their glands begin to swell.
Mumps can have serious consequences:
Most people with mumps recover fully. However, mumps can occasionally cause complications, and some can be serious. Complications may occur even if a person does not have swollen salivary glands (parotitis) and are more common in people who have reached puberty.
Complications of mumps can include inflammation of the testicles (orchitis) in males who have reached puberty (which can rarely lead to sterility), inflammation of the brain (encephalitis) and/or tissue covering the brain and spinal cord (meningitis), inflammation of the ovaries (oophoritis) and/or breasts (mastitis) in females who have reached puberty. Mumps can also cause temporary or permanent deafness.
[/two_third]
[one_third_last]
[/one_third_last]
[one_third]
Follow us:
[/one_third]