The number of Ivy League schools with a mumps outbreak rose to two this week as Yale University announced two suspected cases in an email on Tuesday.
Yale’s announcement of its cases occurred 10 days after the Harvard-Yale football game that brought hundreds of Yale students to Cambridge. Harvard University Health Services’ director Paul J. Barreira emailed the Harvard community that “it is possible that the virus was spread during that time, but we do not have confirmation of this at that time.” He added that the Yale community received a message alerting them of Harvard’s active mumps cases on campus before the football game.
According to The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University is in the midst of its second outbreak of 2016, with the first resulting in 66 cases from March through the end of the summer. Harvard’s second outbreak currently consists of five active cases.
Other schools that also had mumps cases this year include Tufts University and Boston University. Penn has not had a mumps outbreak in recent years.
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