The Arkansas mumps outbreak is the second largest statewide outbreak in the United States in the past fifteen years and according to Dr Dirk Haselow with the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH), he sees it getting worse, in fact, he believes the outbreak may end up being the largest since the turn of the century.
Dirk Haselow, MD, PhD is the State Epidemiologist and Medical Director for Outbreak Response at the ADH and he joined me on the Outbreak News This Week Radio Show to go over the latest on the outbreak, some mumps basics, the issues with the mumps portion of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine ( 94 percent of school-aged children and 45 percent of adults involved in the outbreak have been fully immunized) and actions and research being performed to get the outbreak under control and to learn more.
This year, through the week ending Nov. 26, the CDC has received more than 3800 provisional reports from 45 states and the District of Columbia, the most in a decade.
LISTEN to the interview below:
The Outbreak News This Week Radio Show, the first and only radio program dedicated to infectious disease and health news and information, airs every Sunday at 8 pm ET in the Tampa Bay area on AM 1380 The Biz and online at http://1380thebiz.com/
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