Not Immune From Mumps

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Stemming from an initial mumps outbreak that wreaked havoc at a Jewish camp this summer, 247 New York City residents plus 131 other state residents have since contracted the disease, which remains mostly contained among fervently Orthodox adolescent boys in pockets of New York, New Jersey and Quebec, according to official reports from the New York City and State Departments of Health.

The trigger case occurred back in June, when an 11-year-old boy returned to his Sullivan County summer camp after traveling in the United Kingdom, where an ongoing outbreak has now reached about 4,000 cases, the Centers for Disease Control reported.

From there, the mumps spread to 24 other boys at the camp and continued to plague their local communities when they returned home, and the median age of patients remains around 14. But perhaps the most frustrating news to some parents is that most of the affected patients had received their proper two-dose vaccination as children — 83 percent, according to the CDC.

“This is a very confusing issue not only for ourselves but for providers and parents,” said Cindy Schulte, vaccine-preventable disease surveillance officer at the New York State Department of Health. “If you have a population that’s fairly well but unevenly vaccinated, by logic, you’re going to end up having some disease in the effective population.” The Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine has an 85 to 91 percent efficacy rate among those who take the proper doses, she said.  Continue reading…