A mumps outbreak that has seen 125 cases of the respiratory illness in Manitoba since the beginning of September has finally reached the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) with two cases of mumps having been confirmed in Thompson on Jan. 25.
“It was late Wednesday that we got word and then yesterday got word of a few more that now we’re just waiting for those test results to come back,” said NRHA medical officer of health Dr. Michael Isaac in a Jan. 27 interview. “ We haven’t had any other cases over in The Pas and Flin Flon yet so we’re focusing on Thompson for now but we’re doing messaging with providers and health care workers across the whole of the north to make sure that everyone’s aware. We actually were the last health region to have a confirmed case.”
The number of cases this year is high, says Isaac, with most of them occurring among people under the age of 30, with a particular concentration among university students aged 17 to 29 in Winnipeg.
“We would [normally] range somewhere from two to eight or nine cases a year in Manitoba so having 126 of course is much higher than that and we’re calling that an outbreak,” Isaac said. “Often times these viruses are cyclical so for example with whooping cough or pertussis every four or five years we’ll see a bump in the number of cases and in the past with rubella we’ve had years with a little bit higher numbers so I think it relates back to the ease of travel that we’ve got. Someone in Manitoba would travel to an area where someone has mumps, pick it up, bring it back to the province and then it spreads from there.”
Having received the mumps vaccine is no guarantee that a person can’t contract the mumps virus but it can help lessen the effects
“The vaccine will work for the majority of people to prevent them from getting illness and if you do get illness the vaccine or your immunity from the vaccine will make it so that you’ll have a less severe form of mumps,” Isaac says. “The mumps portion of the MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine isn’t as effective as we would hope, especially for people who are a little bit older and have their vaccinations earlier in childhood. Certainly you can have immunity to mumps through vaccination but still pick up the virus.”
There is no treatment for the mumps apart from those typically used in cases of colds and the flu - fluids, rest and Tylenol for fever. The symptoms usually include fever, a cough and swollen salivary glands from the jaw up to underneath the ears. Some people with the virus won’t show all or any of the symptoms, though they may still be passing the virus along. Mumps spreads through contact with saliva, which can come about through kissing, sharing drinks or utensils, or from respiratory droplets spread via coughing or sneezing. Secondary infections or complications are rare, but can include testicular swelling in men, which does have the potential to lead to sterility in rare cases.
The NRHA has been tracing the contacts of the people who they’ve confirmed as having the mumps. One of the people with a confirmed case was a member of a hockey team and may have been sharing water bottles with teammates, so those people are being advised that they came into contact with someone with the mumps virus.
Isaac says stopping the spread of the disease is difficult because people are infectious before symptoms appear, but that those who do develop mumps can help prevent its spread by isolating themselves from others, not going to work or school and practising good hand hygiene.
“It’s a virus that’s doing it’s thing, it’s spreading around,” Isaac says. “Eventually the cases will start to go down and we won’t have any more.”
While having the mumps is not a pleasant experience, Isaac says it’s not something people should be overly concerned about.
“Given all the different respiratory illness someone cold get, mumps would be one of the less severe ones,” he says. “Although they may not feel all that well for a certain period of time, they should come through it just fine.”
