The Texas Department of State Health Services is advising health care providers to be on alert for mumps in their patients as the state experiences a 22-year high in mumps cases. State, regional and local health departments are currently investigating multiple outbreaks throughout the state, including one involving possible exposures on South Padre Island, a popular spring break destination for students from Texas and elsewhere in the United States. Texas has had 221 mumps cases this year, the largest total since there were 234 cases in 1994.
Image/Urban
Mumps cases potentially linked to South Padre Island first came to light this week when another state health department contacted DSHS about a patient with mumps who had traveled to the area for spring break. DSHS alerted other states and has been notified of 13 mumps cases in people who traveled to South Padre Island between March 8 and March 22 from six states, including two cases from Texas.
Health care providers should consider mumps in patients with compatible symptoms and ask them about travel out of state, to South Padre Island from March 8 to 22 or about any possible exposure to someone with mumps.
According to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2,305 mumps cases have been reported in the US this year through Apr. 8.
Mumps symptoms include swollen or tender salivary glands, swollen or tender testicles, low fever, tiredness and muscle aches. People usually develop symptoms 16-18 days after being exposed to the virus, but it can be as long as 25 days. People who think they have mumps should contact their health care provider, and anyone suspected of having mumps should stay home while they’re contagious – five days after swollen glands occur.
Mumps is highly contagious and is spread through coughing and sneezing and sharing cups and utensils. The mumps vaccine is the best way to keep from getting mumps, and research shows the mumps vaccine protects 88 percent of people who are fully vaccinated. However, some vaccinated people still get sick if they’re exposed to the virus, so it’s also important for people to help stop the spread of mumps by covering coughs and sneezes, washing their hands frequently with soap and water, and not sharing food and drinks. If you don’t know your vaccination status, talk to your health care provider about getting vaccinated.
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Why not a map in English?
The map I get is in English. Are you in the US?
I am in the US and the map says “GOLFE DU MEXIQUE”.
I remember that being Gulf of Mexico. Also, the state of New Mexico is written as Noveau Mexico.
Looks like its French.
Also, its weird that they translate the “new” in New Mexico… I think that should not be translated as “New Mexico” is a name… so it should be the same in all languages. Do they also call New Zealand as Noveau Zealand?
Nouvelle-Zélande in French, Nueva Zelanda in Spanish. Each language has its own way of saying the names of countries or cities.
New York is Nueva York in Spanish and Nowy Jork in Polish.
In the same way, English-speaking countries translate several foreign names into English.
This map is a leftover from the Obama administration – part of a secret plan to give Texas back to Mexico.
The anti-vaxer chickens coming home to roost.
My thought as well
How many of the 221 cases were vaccinated?
These cases had thier vaccines..
The article fails to mention that 98% of these cases are among fully vaccinated people.
Hey stupid, learn how vaccines work before you get snarky and think you have made a point. You havent. You have only proven that anti vaccinators are idiots who dont know what they are talking about. Vaccines require a certain, critical amount of the population to be vaccinated to keep whatever it is from getting to an outbreak level. If 50% of the population is vaccinated and 50% isnt, then it wont help the 50% who are AT ALL. So the stupid half LITERALLY endangers the lives of EVERYONE with their stupidity. The rest of us cant even protect ourselves because of the stupid idiots. So tell me……Why cant I gun you down for putting my 3 year old daughter in mortal danger by being so stupid that you dont believe in vaccinations?
This is what happens when you let inbred moronic trump supporters believe its their right to choose whether or not to get vaccinated. Are you all still patting yourselves on the back for being so nice and tolerant of morons?
Of course the clueless non-crititical thinking nimrods will predictably blame the anti-vaxxers for the outbreaks when its been proven time and time again that mumps is only breaking out among the vaccinated.
Just a couple of examples:
16 Confirmed Mumps Cases in Harvard Community
March 24, 2016
Sixteen mumps cases have been confirmed among Harvard University students in Cambridge since Feb. 29. All students were fully immunized against the mumps prior to contracting the disease.
http://www.cambridgepublichealth.org/news/article.php?id=171
Mumps Being Spread by and Among Vaccinated People
http://www.globalresearch.ca/mumps-being-spread-by-and-among-vaccinated-people/5524458
Bring on your ad hominem attacks. It only shows that vaxtremists has very weak arguments.
Good luck with your medieval chemical injections.
Cypher don’t be an nutjob, vaccines are not perfect and jetfuel does melt steelbeams. reeeeeeeeee.
@Cypher, did you listen to @Skabb at all? The disease has to come from somewhere for people to get it. If you are immunised against a disease, you don’t HAVE THAT DISEASE. Therefore, someone who was NOT IMMUNISED had the disease, and spread it to those for whom the vaccine is not 100% effective. That immunised person can then (AND ONLY THEN) spread the disease to those who share the same lowered efficacy, those who cannot for medical reasons be vaccinated, and those who choose not to. Immunisations work so well because they work on the concept of herd immunity.
“The resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a population that results if a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease, especially through vaccination.”
So you can deduce quite easily that by not immunising oneself, one is far more likely to contract and spread a disease. Put it this way – it’s illegal to drive drunk. People choose to, and then others die as a result of their actions. Luckily relatively few people are hurt every year. Now if drunk driving wasn’t illegal, far more people would make the choice to put themselves and others in harm’s way, and as a result far more people would die. Even if you choose not to drive drunk, you still have an increased chance of being hurt because of the actions of those who do.
I think you can figure out my analogy.