You might consider mumps to be a thing of the past. It is one of those health concerns that are often referred to in the past tense and perhaps this had led to people no longer worrying about the condition. While it is a good thing that mumps had been mainly gotten rid of, perhaps it is a shame that we have begun to no longer worry about it as a problem. Removing the worry about the virus has made us complacent. But what is mumps? It is a common illness that usually occurs during childhood, it is actually known to be the disease that has the longest incubation period and can even take as long as three weeks from the infection to the actual outbreak of symptoms. This can make it difficult to track down the source of infection to get rid of it. The virus is known to be contagious for around three days before and up to seven to eight days after the disease breaks out.
Mumps spreads as an airborne infection, which is obviously fairly problematic. But it’s actually not a particularly contagious condition and children require quite close contact before they can catch mumps. But it is nevertheless a common problem that can be a very unpleasant experience for children. Fortunately, these days the majority of children are vaccinated against mumps with the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination. But not too long ago there was a scare in the media regarding the safety regarding the MMR vaccination for children. This led to many parents avoiding allowing their children to have the vaccination and now we are beginning to see the effects of this take influence on the general population. We are now beginning to hear reports and warnings that a rise in cases of mumps has happened, and it is due in part to waning immunity to the disease in those given the MMR vaccine. It has been reported that there were 948 cases of mumps in the first quarter of the year, and more than the 673 measles cases which prompted a national catch-up campaign to push people to take a catch-up of the MMR vaccine. Half of those who developed mumps in the first three months of this year had received at least one of the two jabs needed to give them the best chance of not falling ill.
Now a number of health experts and medical professionals are anxious that falling immunity to the mumps element of the MMR vaccine must not undermine the message that it still improves young people’s chances of not getting mumps – as well as protecting against measles and rubella. The immunity that MMR vaccination gives is quite likely to be lifelong. Even if it is not, we know that if you have the jab you’ll remain immune for at least 30 years against measles, 23 years against rubella and 19 against mumps. It can be a real worry for parents as mumps is a very serious condition. Thankfully the MMR jab can do an excellent job of protecting your children and you against the problem. It is strongly recommended then, that if you have children or you have never had the MMR jab, you should do so as soon as possible as the problem appears to be growing at an alarming rate. Once you have been inoculated there should be no problems with mumps.
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