AHS warns Medicine Hat about mumps outbreak

Mumps can be easily preventable with the MMR vaccine that is usually given to infants between 12 to 24 months old and with a second booster dose to children between four to six years old.

Medicine Hat currently has 89 per cent of residents vaccinated, with the target goal of 98 per cent. Dr. Suttorp says some parents choose not to vaccinate their children based on information read online.

“In southern Alberta there are different reasons why parents choose immunization or not to immunize their children,” she said. “It is a personal choice and I believe that people should make that choice based on the best evidence that they have.”

Alberta Health Services has issued advisories to post-secondary sport teams and schools as close contact with an infected person is how the virus is spread.

“Within teams there is such close contact within hockey teams, sharing many different thing, and so we see more spread than we would in a general society,” she said.

Mumps can be spread through contact with contaminated saliva, and once a person infected, there is no treatment.

“Early identification is what we’re hoping now…and then isolation for five days after the swelling of the glands,” she said, as that is the best way to minimize the spread.

Alberta Health Services says the best way to avoid getting infected is by continuously washing hands and avoid sharing drinking glasses and utensils.

by Stephanie Villella

AHS warns Medicine Hat about mumps outbreak

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