News: Mumps cases are on the increase

The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7160 p181-186
11 August 2001

Mumps cases are on the increase

The number of laboratory-confirmed cases of mumps has increased for the third year running, the Public Health Laboratory Service has announced.

It says that there were 316 confirmed cases of mumps in the first quarter of this year.

Of these, 70 per cent occurred either in North Yorkshire (149 cases) or in the North West (71) and were associated with outbreaks in schools.

The number of laboratory-confirmed cases that occurred during the first quarters of 1999 and 2000 were 42 and 140, respectively.

A spokeswoman for the service told The Journal that the PHLS does not attribute the increase to falling measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) uptake (PJ, 14 July). She explained that some of the children who had developed mumps were either too old to be given a second dose of MMR during the “catch-up” campaign when the vaccine was first introduced, or they had only received the MR (measles and rubella) vaccine, which preceded MMR.

The report from the PHLS emphasises the need for children to receive two doses of MMR vaccine, because about 10 per cent of children who have only had a single dose of a mumps-containing vaccine fail to respond.

The report can be found on www.phls.co.uk, the PHLS website.