Mumps
Mumps is a once common disease caused by a virus. Before 1967 there were about 200,000 cases of mumps each year in the United States. Now there tend to be only several hundred. Why? A vaccine.
Mumps affects mainly the parotid saliva glands, which are below and in front of your ears, causing one of both of them to become swollen and painful. Other possible symptoms include:
- Pain with chewing or swallowing
- Fever
- Weakness and fatigue
- Tenderness and swelling of a testicle
For those of us not immune, it is easy to catch from mumps another infected person. It is normally spread on tiny droplets of saliva, which could come from a sneeze or on a shared utensil.
As antibiotics are ineffective against a virus, we usually just have to let the virus run its course. For most people, that requires about 2 weeks. As most North Americans receive a mumps vaccine when they are young, this disease is now uncommon.
If your child does get mumps, you need to watch for complications. If they have a high fever, seek your doctor's advice.
Other possible complications include:
- Infection of other organ systems
- Sterility in men (this is quite rare, and mostly occurs in older men)
- Mild forms of meningitis (rare, 40% of cases occur without parotid swelling)
- Encephalitis (very rare, rarely fatal)
- Hearing loss (rare)
For another summary of this disease, see
this site.
For information about the April 2006 mumps outbreak in the mid-west U.S., see more details
here
and here.
This article from the Mayo Clinic is a very good summary of this disease's outbreak.
News about Mumps
These news items are supplied by "Yahoo! News". You can visit them at http://news.yahoo.com/.
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