Up to 3 U of M students now confirmed to have the mumps: https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2018/10/three_university_of_michigan_s.html
Not a fun illness - at all! Could have been easily prevented.
Yep. And those three likely exposed yet-to-be vaccinated babies, the elderly and/or other immunocompromised people to the virus as well. Mumps can be deadly to people in any of these groups, including those with cancer, HIV/AIDs, etc.
A “Time” magazine interview with Robert Redford this week described how he got polio as a child. It wasn’t an extreme case, but he still had a long period of recovery. I bet he wishes he’d had access to the vaccine!
I have a daughter at Michigan. She and all her house-mates are getting mumps boosters.
My premie niece was born on Monday and I have been in the hospital with her and my siblings-in-law pretty consistently over the last 48 hours. I didn’t know about the mumps cases until sometime on Tuesday. The odds of me carrying and exposing my niece are just about zero, especially since I haven’t been on campus that often, but I’m still feeling kind of guilty for even potentially exposing her.
I didn’t read this whole thread, so not sure if I missed this, but when did mumps vaccines start??? I remember an outbreak when I was in (what is now) Rowan University in the early 1990’s. I never got it, but everyone swore I was a carrier when my boyfriend got it. Then my roommate, who had been very careful not to get too close after my boyfriend got it, drank from my glass and ended up with them too!
@NJWrestlingmom it started in the 60s. Unfortunately, it’s a vaccine that wears off fairly quickly. It’s why so many adults are encouraged to get boosters.
Mumps is a disease that is very easy to carry. It has a long incubation/contagion period and many people get symptoms that are so mild that they don’t even notice them.
The mumps vaccine is one of the “M’s” in the MMR vaccine. It’s been in use since the early 70’s. There was a stand-alone mumps vaccine in use a few years previous to the MMR.
MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) hit the market late 60’s/early 70’s. Babies don’t get MMR vaccine until 12-15 months, so they are at risk if exposed to these viruses before then.
My sister had both measles and mumps just before the vaccines were available. She was born in 1960 and she remember being sick both times.
I had measles as a one year old. My mom said I sobbed for two days straight, every waking moment.
Never had mumps and have been vaccinated several times, once as a 34 year old when I couldn’t provide proof of a past vaccine.
Scary times! Mumps can be awful and leave males sterile!
I had measles and what they used to call German measles (rubella) at the same time! I was one year old. Never got mumps. Mumps vaccine became available in 1967. The combination MMR became available in 1971.
Anyone remember the Rubella Umbrella? Was that just in New York, or national?
I’m from NY but don’t remember that. I did get chicken pox when I was 16 and that was brutal!! I still have scars from when I thought I was breaking out and picked them! Spent the whole day at 6 Flags, woke up sweating to death in the morning and looked down to see myself covered in red spots! I was so sick for a sold 2 weeks!
I had chicken pox on July 4, 1976. I caught it from kids I had babysat for.
Geez. I had them all – measles, mumps, chicken pox. Measles I was too young to remember (age 3) - but definitely remember the others. And the MMR vaccine was available for my kids in infancy, but not chicken pox – they both had it, though in my daughter’s case she was about age 2 and was very mild
Of course I was born more than a year before the polio vaccine became generally available.
And I am old enough to have been vaccinated against smallpox.
I also had measles, mumps, German measles and chickenpox. I was happy they had vaccines to protect our kids. My kids had chickenpox.
Bad timing for me. I did not get the mumps vaccine. My baby sister got her MMR. I have a personal experience with the dang mumps when I was in seventh grade. With my parents out of town and not knowing why my neck was so swollen, I decided to walk to my doc’s office, and boy did they scramble to call everyone who was in the waiting room with me. And just a few weeks after my recovery, my little stinker sister who was MMR-vaccinated brought me the chicken pox! Miserable.
@NJWrestlingmom
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/06/14/archives/citys-rubella-drive-on-tv-sells-children-on-need-for-shots.html?_r=0
I can’t find video of the commercial. I remember being upset that I couldn’t get my rubella umbrella because I already had had rubella!