Mumps Outbreak in NY Schools

Tom Randall – Bloomberg

An outbreak of mumps in Jewish schools in New York and New Jersey sickened 1,521 students since June and isn’t subsiding, U.S. health officials said.

There were 19 hospitalizations and no deaths in the biggest outbreak since 2006, when 6,500 college students were infected, according to a report today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The children getting mumps have high vaccination rates, and the disease’s spread may be due to the large family size in Orthodox Jewish communities and prolonged exposure to fellow pupils in boys-only schools, the CDC said.

U.K. Origin

The outbreak began when an 11-year-old boy returned from a trip to the U.K. on June 17 after being infected in a surge of cases there that affected more than 7,400 people last year.

The boy then attended a New York summer camp for Jewish boys and passed the virus to other attendees and a staff member before developing symptoms on June 28. The sick children brought the virus back to their communities in New York and New Jersey. The New York borough of Brooklyn was hardest hit.

Most cases of mumps are mild and give students a temporary “chipmunk appearance,” Gallagher said. Rare cases can lead to temporary or permanent deafness and potentially fatal brain- swelling encephalitis. One case of temporary deafness was reported in the U.S. outbreak.

U-Shaped Tables

The Orthodox boys’ schools are especially suited for mumps transmission because students sit at U-shaped tables and face a study partner instead of the more common practice of students facing in the same direction, Gallagher said.

“There’s more contact that way than there would be in a public school classroom where you’d essentially be coughing into the back of someone’s neck,” Gallagher said.

The infected children were primarily ages 7 to 18, with a median age of 15, according to the report. Seventy-six percent were male.

The average family size in the affected communities is 5.7 people, more than double the 2.6 people in the typical U.S. household, the CDC said, citing 2000 Census data. Large families tend to have more continuous exposure to each other, making the spread of virus more likely, she said.