Mumps outbreak reaches Pa.

A mumps outbreak affecting more than 1,300 people is spreading across college campuses in the Midwest and reached Pennsylvania last week.

The outbreak, touching Iowa and seven other states, has been spreading since the end of last year, with two cases confirmed last week at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.

No cases have occurred at Penn or in the Philadelphia area, and officials say that the Penn population is well immunized and the University is prepared to deal with any outbreak.

The mumps is a viral disease that can affect the salivary glands as well as other organs. The disease is rarely fatal among adults, but no treatment exists. Recovery usually takes one to two weeks.

Serious complications can result from an infection, however.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Director of Infectious Diseases Paul Offit said that since the disease is so highly contagious, even if 70 to 85 percent of a population were immunized, it would still be possible for an outbreak to occur.

Director of Student Health Services Evelyn Weiner said that all full time students have had at least one -- if not two -- doses of the mumps vaccine.

Weiner also said that the University may require two doses of the vaccine for both current and incoming students for the fall semester.

It's a "looking-forward situation," Weiner said. "At this point, we are comfortable with the high level of protection in the community."

Weiner added that Student Health works with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia during public-health crises.

The current outbreak was likely brought over from England, where the mumps has recently affected tens of thousands of people, Offit said. An outbreak occurs when there is an "accumulation of susceptibles" -- people who haven't been vaccinated successfully.

He said that the disease can be very serious in both children and adults.

People "think of this as a benign childhood rite of passage," he said. "In fact, it ... can cause deafness in children."

He said that mumps can cause fetal death among pregnant women and sterility among men.

Boston-based doctor Humi Vishniavsky said mumps presents a problem for doctors because early symptoms, such as headache and fever, are easily misdiagnosed.

Weiner said that college campuses are particularly vulnerable because of the close living conditions of student populations.

"Any time you have groups that are clustered together living in close proximity ... it is much easier for outbreaks to start and to be sustained," she said.

Weiner said two or three cases of mumps occur in Philadelphia each year, but mumps hasn't affected the Penn campus in more than 15 years, when there was an outbreak of 30 to 40 cases.

She said that, in that outbreak, officials were able to control the situation with a secondary dose of mumps vaccine for those not fully immunized. The same plan is in effect if the current outbreak reaches Penn.

"I'm optimistic that we will get on top of this outbreak and that we will control it with a vaccine [for] those who are exposed to it," Offit said.

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