“State health officials in Maryland are warning medical providers to be on the lookout for another viral infection this season — mumps, which causes fever and swelling and pain in the salivary glands in the neck,” reports The Baltimore Banner:
There have been 14 infections this year, mostly in adults in the Baltimore metro area. That’s a jump from the four cases all of last year and the small annual number typically recorded in state data.
The virus can be prevented with the same vaccine as for measles, a highly contagious infection that has been surging in the past year, largely in children in other states. Maryland has not had a measles case since March.
Public health officials have been especially alarmed by the resurgence of measles, and by attacks on the vaccine to prevent or mitigate the infections…The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella. Maryland and many other states, as well as most major medical associations, continue to advise people to get all of the immunizations.
The federal government recently urged people to get the MMR vaccine against measles and mumps, in a forceful call from Dr. Oz, the director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The Maryland Department of Health similarly recommends that health care providers vaccinate “patients as per current clinical recommendations.” Two doses of the MMR vaccine are recommended for “anyone who has not received it and was born after 1957.” People who are vaccinated are much less likely than unvaccinated people to get infected with mumps, and even when they do get infected, “often have milder symptoms” than unvaccinated people.
MMR vaccination rates vary considerably by state. “Counties with the lowest uptake were mainly in Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas, with the highest coverage in parts of Indiana, New York, and Oregon.”
Over the last 25 years, vaccination rates have plummeted (especially over the last 5 years), and people with measles or mumps sometimes migrate into the United States. By 2013, U.S. vaccination rates for measles and mumps had fallen to 91% for 1-year-olds, similar to the vaccination rate in Mexico, and lower than the vaccination rates of Canada, England, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine. Now, the vaccination rate for American 1-year-olds is closer to 80%.
So a lot more people are unvaccinated, and can catch the measles or mumps, in the United States.
By contrast, 22 nations have eliminated measles and rubella by vaccinating at rates of over 90%.
Unvaccinated children died last year of measles in Los Angeles and Texas.
“Measles vaccination has saved 94 million lives globally since 1974. Of those, 92 million were children”, says Our World in Data.
After vaccination rates fell, whooping cough cases jumped 14-fold in Michigan, resulting in a few deaths. Many more people are getting the disease, which makes you feel awful, as if you are coughing your lungs out. For babies, the disease can be deadly.
