A mumps outbreak among Frum Jews in New York and New Jersey has now surpassed 1,500 cases and shows no sign of ending soon, WCBSTV reports.
The outbreak began last summer at a boys camp in the Catskills. Nearly all the cases are in the insular Orthodox Jewish community. Health officials said most had a mumps vaccination, but the shots are not completely effective.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday said the count has now reached 1,521. Nineteen people have been hospitalized but no deaths have been reported.
Investigators say the outbreak started in August 2009 at a Jewish summer camp in Sullivan County with an 11-year-old boy who brought the disease from England.
It has since spread to Jewish communities in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Orange county.
Mumps spreads through saliva, coughing and sneezing. Common symptoms are flu-like and include swelling of the salivary glands.
(Source: http://wcbstv.com/)
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7 Responses
Correct me if I am wrong, but dont some people actually have mumps parties because they want their kids to get the mumps as children because adult onset of mumps is almost always very dangerous and painful? If so, then this is a blessing in disguise. If I am wrong about this, forgive me. Either way, refuah shelayma to all.
Chicken pox parties, not mumps. Mumps causes orchitis (testicular inflammation) in boys. 10% of boys who get mumps will become sterile. Try getting a shidduch for a 21 year old bucher who can’t have children. Who should he thank?
No, actually that is chicken pox parties. Mumps is usually covered in the MMR vaccine and those who get the shot don’t have to go thru all this suffering.
3 (brainisclearazmud),
Sorry to rain on your anti jewish party but have you not been paying attention where it was noted many many times on YWN as well as other sites that just about everyone getting the mumps now HAD the vaccination? I know 5 people that had the mumps & they ALL had the vaccination.
That most of the kids in Kiryas Joel who had the mumps had been vaccinated was confirmed to me personally by a frum doc who was part of the CDC investigatory team (who also said that the Rebbe personally saw to it that his team of investigators had full access to everything in the community, and treated the investigators like royalty). The vaccination is not 100% effective — but it is a lot better than 0% which is what you have if you don’t vaccinate. And it has been conclusively proven that the vaccine does NOT cause autism.
to #5: have you heard of the possibility of this being a new strain of the vaccination, or of certain batches of the shot not being as effective in which case people should have their titers retested? I’m concerned due to travel plans and a family member on an immunosuppressant.
Should have been, new strain of mumps not covered by the vaccine.