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| Make sure your innoculations are up to date -- mumps outbreaks in Iowa and Nebraska |
| 2006-03-31 |
| Nebraska: Several cases of mumps have been confirmed in Adams County in south-central Nebraska, the Nebraska Health and Human Services System said Thursday. Potential cases in Jefferson and Hamilton counties were also being investigated. The Iowa Department of Public Health has confirmed 219 cases of mumps so far this year, and Nebraska officials said the people with mumps in Adams County have connections to Iowa. Nebraska's state epidemiologist, Dr. Tom Safranek, said people 30 to 65 years old who haven't had the disease or been vaccinated are most at risk. Mumps is a highly contagious viral infection of the salivary glands. It's spread through coughing or sneezing or through direct contact with saliva or mucus. Health experts say mumps can lead to deafness, meningitis, a swelling of the testicles or ovaries and, rarely, death. Symptoms include fever, headache and swollen glands under the jaw. Iowa:It first showed up in January and by the end of February. Iowa had 26 cases of the mumps. Three weeks later, that number more than doubled. Today, health officials believe there are more than 200 Iowans with the disease. Iowa hasn't seen an outbreak like this in nearly 20 years. About one-third of Iowa counties are reporting cases of mumps. Dubuque county alone has already had 85 cases this year. College aged students are most at risk, accounting for about a third of all cases in Iowa. Health officials say the virus is spread by coughing or sneezing and campuses act much like a breeding ground for diseases like the mumps. But, health officials say it's not kids that should worry as much as the Baby Boomer generation. That's the age group health officials say might not have had a second dose of the M.M.R., or measles, mumps, rubella vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control says the mumps virus in Iowa has shown up in other parts of the world. It's similar to a strain seen in an outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2004 and 2005. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |