Officials urge mumps shots in wake of outbreak

The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency is recommending mumps vaccinations for students, campers and summer travelers who have never been vaccinated or only received one shot.

“There have been no local cases of mumps reported,” said Leslie Ridgeway, San Diego County media specialist. “But we are encouraging people who think they could be at risk to get vaccinated.”

The recommendation comes in the wake of a mumps outbreak that began last year in Iowa and has since spread to 10 other states in the Midwest and elsewhere.

As of June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported more than 4,400 confirmed cases, the largest outbreak in a single year since 1991. The majority of cases were reported in Iowa with the next highest case totals in Kansas, Illinois, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Other impacted states included Missouri, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, and to a lesser degree, Colorado, Mississippi and Minnesota.

While mumps is seldom fatal, it can cause such complications as inflammation of the brain, testicles, ovaries and/or breasts, miscarriage and hearing loss.

Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, fatigue and loss of appetite, followed by swelling of the salivary glands.

Locally, the Centre for Health Care in Rancho Bernardo, as of last Friday, had not experienced an increased demand for the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine.

According to Centre Medical Director Dr. Lawrence Koenig, the current dose recommendation for vaccinating against the mumps depends on several factors, including whether an individual was recently exposed to the disease, how many prior doses a person has received, whether you are a college student, health care worker or international traveler, whether a prior dose consisted of “killed” vaccine as opposed to a “live” vaccine, and so on.

“It’s better to have your primary physician sort it out because there are too many variables,” Koenig wrote in an e-mail.

The MMR vaccine is available for $10 at the County’s Public Health Centers, which are geographically located throughout San Diego, for those who qualify, including children, the under-insured and the uninsured, Ridgeway said.

“But no one will be turned away if they can’t pay,” she added.

The vaccine is free for children under age two.

The County’s Health and Human Services Agency is encouraging students, health care providers, summer campers and travelers to get two doses of mumps vaccine if they have never been vaccinated or previously received only one shot.

For more information on mumps vaccinations, individuals can call County Immunizations at 619-692-8661 or check with their own physician.