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HSE issues mumps warning as 132 cases reported last week - the highest weekly number in over a decade

Symptoms of mumps include fever, headache and painful swollen salivary glands.

LAST UPDATE | 17 Jan 2020

THE HSE HAS warned students at colleges and universities to ensure they are fully vaccinated against mumps. 

There were a total of 132 cases of mumps reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) last week. The HSE confirmed that this is the highest weekly number of reported cases in over a decade.

“During the 2019 outbreak period there were other weeks where in excess of 120 notifications were made in any one week.

“During the 2009 outbreak there were a number of weeks when the number of notifications exceeded this number reported [last week],” a spokesperson told TheJournal.ie

There were 62 cases in the first week of 2020. More of the recent cases have been in the east of the country. 

There were about 2,500 reported mumps cases nationwide in 2019, up from 573 in 2018.

The number of cases has fluctuated in recent years, with a spike in 2015. There were 291 cases in 2017, 488 in 2016, 2,014 in 2015 and 742 in 2014.

mumps age and gender HPSC HPSC

Mumps is spread between people by coughing and sneezing and can be transmitted through direct contact with saliva. Symptoms include fever, headache and painful swollen salivary glands.

Mumps activity peaked in May of 2019, but it declined during the summer months. However, mumps cases began increasing again in the second week of September.

This coincided with the reopening of schools, colleges, institutes of technology and universities. At the time, universities in Dublin issued warnings to students about the outbreak. 

Warning to students 

The HSE has now issued fresh warnings over mumps outbreaks around the country as students begin returning to colleges and universities.

In the current outbreak, the greatest number of cases are in the 15-24 age group and the median age of cases is 20 years old.

A HSE spokesperson said there were low levels of uptake of the MMR vaccine among this age group when they were two years old, in 2001 and 2002. 

“The immunisation uptake for children aged 24 months in the relevant period of 2002 (the current 19-year-old age cohort) was 75%.

“Therefore this cohort had a history of low MMR uptake at 24 months. This may be one of the reasons contributing to the mumps outbreak,” the spokesperson told us.  

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland earlier, HSE assistant national director of public health Dr Kevin Kelleher said that outbreaks are happening because a large portion of 15 to 30-year-olds in Ireland don’t have full protection against mumps. 

“It’s a consequence of the fact that a large-ish portion of our 15 to 30-year-olds have not got a full protection against mumps from the MMR vaccine because not all of them are getting the vaccine or are only having one dose,” Kelleher said.

“You need to have at least two doses to protect yourself properly,” he added. 

The HSE has asked students to check their vaccination status before returning to college. 

“If they’re not sure at all, just have a vaccine before you go back to college,” Kelleher said. 

“You really do need to make sure before you go back to college that you have the vaccine,” he said. 

“What we’re really trying to do is to ensure that this doesn’t on to the point where it will start affecting students’ performance, particularly around the time of exams later in the year.” 

Vaccinations

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre said the best protection against mumps is to be age-appropriately vaccinated with the MMR vaccine. 

Children are routinely recommended the MMR vaccine at 12 months and at the age of five to six through the national immunisation programme. 

Older children and adults particularly those born since 1978, who never had the MMR vaccine or only one dose, should speak to their GP about getting the vaccine, the HPSC advised. 

Receiving two doses of MMR vaccine will protect about 88% of individuals who have received the vaccine against clinical mumps.

With reporting by Órla Ryan 

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    Mute Shaun Gallagher
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    Jan 17th 2020, 10:56 AM

    No jabs, no children’s allowance

    296
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    Mute Fabio Dillon
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    Jan 17th 2020, 11:10 AM

    @Shaun Gallagher: excellent thought

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    Mute MaeVic
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    Jan 17th 2020, 3:19 PM

    @Shaun Gallagher: Should not be children allowance anyway. The old child tax free allowance was the way to go.

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    Mute thesaltyurchin
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    Jan 18th 2020, 10:01 AM

    @Shaun Gallagher: what if your kid has the jab AND still gets it?

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    Mute Dave O'Keeffe
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    Jan 18th 2020, 10:51 AM

    @thesaltyurchin: then they’ll be treated, just like anyone else that gets it. Nobody is saying sick people shouldn’t be treated just that parents should be encouraged to lower the risk

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    Mute Raven
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    Jan 18th 2020, 11:33 AM

    @Shaun Gallagher:
    Bordering on fascism and tyranny much?
    Researchers admit vaccine toxicity at WHO event.
    https://twitter.com/RedRaven1776/status/1217749784234209281?s=09

    4
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    Mute Micheal O'Cleirigh
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    Jan 18th 2020, 11:40 AM

    @Shaun Gallagher: But these are adults that are getting the mumps Merck are being sued in a Qui Tam lawsuit in the US over falsifying mumps efficacy data to FDA. Outbreaks in older people more dangerous. Parents blamed. Merck risk losing monopoly in the US. GSK gearing up to replace with new MMR. It’s just business. https://ahrp.org/former-merck-scientists-sue-merck-alleging-mmr-vaccine-efficacy-fraud/

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    Mute thesaltyurchin
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    Jan 18th 2020, 7:12 PM

    @Dave O’Keeffe: ‘encouraged’… nice one.

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    Mute Ciarán Ó Fallúin
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    Jan 17th 2020, 12:59 PM

    For parents not giving their kids the MMR, just a reminder than mumps can lead to sterility. Just imagine trying to explain to your kids in later life as they come to grips with the knowledge that they can’t have children themselves, that you thought your membership to a closed Facebook group was giving you an inside track and all the doctors were wrong.

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    Mute Pete Byrne
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    Jan 17th 2020, 6:49 PM

    @Ciarán Ó Fallúin: sounds terrifying, but instances of full sterility are not only rare but interferon is seen to prevent that occurring, and improve your situation should a degree of infertility occur. Just one of the issues of using unreferenced scary stories from the last century https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1633545/#__ffn_sectitle

    The mumps vaccine lasts for 27 years, then you’re liable to be unprotected, just as you were planning to have kids. But I’m sure your doctor told you all this.
    https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/433/eaao5945

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    Mute 523StarBar
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    Jan 17th 2020, 10:17 PM

    @Ciarán Ó Fallúin: not all cases of mumps are in unvaccinated people. People are too quick to blame anti vac .. the article above says 2 doses covers 88% of people. It still happens and we need to educate on this. I know of vaccinated kids who got Measles.

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    Mute Mirabelle Stonegate
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    Jan 17th 2020, 10:42 PM

    @Ciarán Ó Fallúin: as someone vehemently against having kids, and denied sterilisation multiple times because 30 was considered too young to know that, really, I’m wrong and want kids.. this info makes me wish I wasnt vaccinated. If it were possible, I would happily give my uterus to a woman that wants it. But apparently, being sure for 25 years that I never want kids means I haven’t put enough thought into my decision. I have literally had a medical professional tell me I need to have a child before I decide I don’t want to be a mother. Like, wtf??

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    Mute Brendan Cooney
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    Jan 17th 2020, 11:50 PM

    @Pete Byrne: well to most people 30%-87% of patients with bilateral mumps orchitis experience infertility is fairly significant, obviously not to a gambling man like you. The conclusion of the first paper also indicated sterility a significant problem.

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    Mute thesaltyurchin
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    Jan 18th 2020, 9:56 AM

    @Ciarán Ó Fallúin: met two people back from holidays who had mumps, both had been vaccinated. Go figure.

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    Mute Ciara Kennedy
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    Jan 18th 2020, 11:47 AM

    @Ciarán Ó Fallúin: please stop lecturing I was fully vaccinated and got the booster and myself and two friends still got it! There’s something else going on here.

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    Mute Chin Feeyin
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    Jan 17th 2020, 11:31 AM

    “Ah, but, I read on Facebook……….”

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    Mute 523StarBar
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    Jan 17th 2020, 10:19 PM

    @Chin Feeyin: did you read above that two doses of MMR gives 88% coverage. Some fully vaccinated kids get mumps and the parents are assumed to have denied the child vaccination .

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    Mute HuffnPuff
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    Jan 18th 2020, 12:23 AM

    Sterility is only one aspect. How about severe brain damage to any foetus who contracts it in the uterus? When I was a child mumps could kill or severely impact on a healthy child. Non vaccination is a disgrace.

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    Mute Ciarán Barry
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    Jan 18th 2020, 2:34 AM

    You can’t get “full protection”. And the “88%” is certainly not accurate. I got mumps a couple of weeks ago and now many of my friends have it and have all received the vaccine, 2 doses, including myself. More needs to be done to combat the issue from the health department.

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    Mute Sorcha Ní Shúilleabháin
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    Jan 18th 2020, 7:57 AM

    @Ciarán Barry: how the 88% inaccurate?

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    Mute thesaltyurchin
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    Jan 18th 2020, 9:58 AM

    @Ciarán Barry: It a new strain apparently, all the people I met that contracted it HAD been vaccinated. The keyboard mafia are out in force nonetheless.

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    Mute The Blue Dot Observer
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    Jan 17th 2020, 10:48 PM

    Someone has to tell the students to stop licking each other – no transfer of saliva then…

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    Mute Pat Redmond
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    Jan 18th 2020, 8:36 AM

    That photo of the injection is off putting. It does nothing to improve take up on vaccination.

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    Mute Micheal O'Cleirigh
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    Jan 18th 2020, 11:34 AM

    Why don’t the HSE publish the vaccine status of these people?(I’d imagine if they where not vaccinated that they would publish it?) They do publish the status in N.Ireland and ( Page 19).” The majority of cases (92%) had received two doses of MMR vaccine” FrankinScience! What was once a childhood illness has now moved to adults where is it much more dangerous. https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/2019-01/Annual%20VPDs%20Report%20for%20NI%202018%20%282017%20data%29.pdf

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    Mute Pat Redmond
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    Jan 18th 2020, 8:36 AM

    That photo of the injection is offputting. It does nothing to improve take up on vaccination.

    1
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    Mute 523StarBar
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    Jan 17th 2020, 10:12 PM

    So article above says two doses of said vax will protect 88% of people . . Leaving 12% unprotected.. and everyone just assumes the cases of mumps are due to tin foil anti-vax idiots .. not all vaccinated are covered ..

    1
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