From what started a few months ago in Brooklyn has continued on through the holiday season where New York City is currently dealing with approximately 600 confirmed and suspected cases.
What was started in an upstate New York Jewish summer camp is mostly contained in the Orthodox Jewish adolescent population. The initial case was an 11 year old who previously returned from a trip to the UK where they are also dealing with an outbreak in the thousands of cases.
In the current outbreak, very few cases have been seen outside the Hasidic community where the kids are basically segregated and attend yeshivas and not public schools.
This is the largest mumps outbreak in the United States since 2006 where an outbreak of 6500 cases in Iowa occurred primarily in college dormitory residents.
One troubling thing about this outbreak is that 83% of the infected children had received the proper two-dose vaccination protocol.
According to the New York State Department of Health, the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) have an efficacy rate of around 90%.
Read the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Alert #47.
Mumps is an acute viral disease characterized by fever, and swelling and tenderness of one or more salivary glands. Complications to mumps may include; orchitis (which has been reported to be a risk factor for testicular cancer), encephalitis and spontaneous abortion. Sterility in males is a rare possible outcome.
The virus is transmitted person to person via airborne and droplet spread. Maximum infectiousness occurs between two days prior to onset of illness to four days afterwards
Comments
It looks like the vaccines aren't working very well.
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