For the second time this year Colorado health officials have warned of a potential disease outbreak. This time, its mumps outbreak.
In early January, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment released a statement urging Denver-area residents to monitor themselves for measles symptoms after one resident was diagnosed with the disease. In this case, Patient Zero was not vaccinated and had travelled abroad before coming down with the measles virus. Last week, Colorado health officials announced that there had been no new cases of measles following this exposure. Today, however, officials are warning Colorado residents about a mumps outbreak that spans the entire country.
So far in January, there have been 14 mumps cases reported in Colorado. Eleven of those have been in the Denver metropolitan area.
To put that in perspective, Colorado sees an average of 5.6 mumps cases a year. Just one month into 2017 and Colorado has almost tripled this average. Other parts of the country have seen even larger spikes. More than 270 people in Washington State, for example, have been diagnosed with mumps this year.
American microbiologist Maurice Hilleman invented the mumps vaccine in 1963 after his daughter, Jeryl Lynn, came down with the virus. While infection seldom results in death, it can cause permanent deafness and even infertility. The Jeryl Lynn mumps vaccine is still used today.
Before the vaccine was rolled out in the late 1960s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 186,000 cases of mumps were reported each year. The combined MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine has helped to reduce this number by more than 99%.
Like every vaccine, the mumps vaccine does not guarantee protection from the disease. Many of the people who come down with the virus each year are completely up to date with their shots. But more often than not, outbreaks begin with someone who has chosen, for whatever reason, not to get vaccinated.
