Hockey Calgary, schools on alert in mumps scare

Post-game handshakes put on ice amid push to halt spread of virus

As the mumps scare spreads, the city’s schools and its youngest hockey players are being urged to take precautions.

Hockey Calgary head Kevin Kobelka sent a directive to his teams on Monday to avoid bare skin handshakes between players in a bid to limit spread of the virus.

Last week, Alberta Health Services sent out a detailed advisory to schools and parents urging them to take action to hold the mumps at bay. After word the WHL Brandon Wheat Kings and Medicine Hat Tigers and the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks had been hit by the mumps outbreak, Kobelka said he felt it was time to take action.

“We thought we’d just add one more layer to it to keep the level of contact to a minimum,” he said.

Rather than handshakes, players are instead encouraged to show good sportsmanship by fistbumping while wearing hockey gloves, said Kobelka.

They’re also being instructed to avoid sharing towels and water bottles, covering up coughs and sneezes, and to ensure anyone showing symptoms stays away from the rink.

“The No. 1 way to stop it is with vaccinations but that’s not in our control, but we can control sharing towels and water bottles,” said Kobelka.

On the eve of the start of Hockey Calgary’s playoffs, he said parents last weekend had also voiced concern about the prospect of mumps invading the organization’s leagues, he said. Hockey Calgary oversees 14,300 players ranging in age from five to 20.

None of its players has contracted mumps, said Kobelka.

In a memo sent to both the public and separate school boards and parents, the AHS urged youngsters be immunized, noting that by age six children should have received two vaccinations.

“Outbreaks of mumps in Manitoba and the U.S. in the past several months are a reminder that vaccine-preventable infections are still a risk to health, including here in Alberta,” said the memo.

As of Tuesday, there were 18 confirmed cases of mumps recorded in Alberta in 2017, three of them in the Alberta Health Service’s Calgary Zone.

Seven of those were players and coaching staff of the Medicine Hat Tigers.

While the Alberta numbers aren’t skyrocketing, concern over the virus is heating up in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Manitoba Health says that, as of Friday, there have been 176 confirmed

Normally, we do have between four and maybe eight in a bad year and so, yes, that’s why we’re classifying this as an outbreak.

cases of mumps in the province since September — numbers that are also causing alarm in neighbouring Saskatchewan.

“Normally, we do have between four and maybe eight in a bad year and so, yes, that’s why we’re classifying this as an outbreak,” Dr. Richard Rusk, Manitoba’s medical officer of health for communicable diseases, said Tuesday.

“But as soon as it goes to the community, that’s where it becomes that little bit more risky that it can spread.”

Most of the cases were initially university students between 18 and 29 years old, living in Winnipeg or involved in sports.

But health officials say mumps cases are now being seen in all ages and throughout Manitoba.

Rusk said it’s the highest number of cases since 1996, when Manitoba introduced a program to give two doses of the mumps vaccine to children.

The illness isn’t spread through the air but is transmitted through liquid and can be shared through coughing, sneezing or sharing saliva.

While mumps has an incubation period of 25 days, symptoms include a swelling of the cheeks or the sensation of a severe cold or influenza.

Mumps can lead to serious complications such as pancreatitis and meningitis.