Avoiding mumps ‘comes down to shots’
Anyone who’s suffered through the mumps will tell you that coming down with the virus is an experience best avoided.
The swelling of one’s parotid, or salivary, glands is painful and the contagious nature of the viral infection means patients should avoid contact with others for at least five days after the swelling begins.
Although the disease has been mostly contained since the availability of an effective vaccine in the late 1960s, recent cases in Halifax and other instances, including an outbreak of mumps symptoms among several Vancouver Canucks hockey players, has reignited conversation about the virus that most commonly afflicts children, but that in 2014 was famously diagnosed in hockey superstar Sidney Crosby.
According to Dr. Ryan Sommers, regional medical officer of health, contracting the mumps is not something everybody needs to be worried about.
“With anybody born before 1970 there is a very strong chance that they had mumps growing up, so they would have developed some immunity to it,” said Sommers, adding that to his knowledge there has not been any cluster of cases in Cape Breton.
“It also comes down to shots — we’ve seen mumps in people who haven’t been vaccinated and also in people who have only had one shot, so we highly recommend they come in and get either their first or second vaccination.
“Over the past couple of decades, we’ve realized now that to get really good protection that we should have two shots and people needing a second vaccine can get a publicly funded free shot.”
Sommers said people who can’t remember how many shots they’ve had, if any, can go through a serology test to determine the state of their immunity.
The first symptoms of the mumps include fevers, headaches, muscle aches and swollen glands.
“The symptoms may be similar to the common cold, but when the glands are swollen for more than two days then it’s probably caused by the mumps,” he said.
“Once you get it, the best thing you can do is rest up, be well fed, be well hydrated, and let your body fight off the infection.”
Sommer said the best ways to prevent the mumps are vaccinations and hand hygiene, the latter because of the virus’ highly contagious nature.
“And that’s really important — the hands are the most common way to pick up infections,” he said.
The latest figures show that while there were only 65 cases of mumps in 2015, there have been several recent years with spikes in the number of patients diagnosed with the virus, including more than 1,100 cases in 2007.