In case of mumps outbreak: No shots, no school, officials warn
Children who aren’t vaccinated against mumps could end up spending weeks at home under new advice from public-health leaders.
Columbus and Franklin County health commissioners Dr. Teresa Long and Susan Tilgner have sent letters to school leaders to pass along to parents that encourage vaccination and inform them that children who aren’t fully vaccinated might have to stay home for 25 days or longer if mumps cases start to cluster in schools.
“Hopefully, there will be some (parents) who will reconsider and, hopefully, take action and get their kids immunized,” said Columbus Public Health spokesman Jose Rodriguez.
The commissioners want to protect unvaccinated children, but their advice comes with a broader public-health concern in mind: Unvaccinated children increase the chances that one mumps case at a school turns into more, Long said.
Complicating matters in this, and any, mumps outbreak is the fact that the virus has a long shelf life. A person can spread mumps for more than three weeks.
The central Ohio outbreak is now so big that there are more than half as many mumps cases here as there were nationwide last year, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 438 people in 39 states had mumps.
The number of local cases increased to 224 in eight counties yesterday afternoon. Since 2001, the highest number of mumps cases in Franklin County was four in 2006, Rodriguez said, and those were unrelated.
So far, 17 cases have been reported in schoolchildren and school employees throughout central Ohio, but there have been no clusters of two or more, a situation that would set off public-health alarms, Long said.
Health investigators know that at least one of the schoolchildren sickened in the outbreak had neither vaccine against mumps and two others had only one of the two shots. Two had no documentation.
Five or six Columbus City Schools students have had mumps, and the schools have contacted parents of unvaccinated schoolmates to warn them, but there hasn’t so far been a reason to exclude those children from school, said schools spokesman Jeff Warner.
Similar steps have been taken in the Olentangy Local Schools in Delaware County, said spokesman Devon Immelt. The Delaware General Health District in late March sent a letter similar to the one Long and Tilgner sent this week.
The illness can be severe and lead to extended lost time from work and school. In rare cases, it leads to serious complications.
One individual is deaf because of the mumps, seven men have suffered with swollen testicles, and one woman has had swollen ovaries. In rare cases, mumps can lead to infertility.
mcrane@dispatch.com