Mumps outbreak in Kerala: Alarming increase in Numbers

Mumps outbreak in Kerala: Alarming increase in Numbers

Mumps is a viral disease which is also contagious, found mainly in children. Kerala has seen the disease spread in numbers over the past few months. The numbers reported are 11,467 in the last few months only as of 10th March. The Disease Control Centre has asked to focus on a few districts and the northern regions of Kerela.

Although Mumps can generally be caught by a person of any age, it is more prevalent in kids aged 5 to 9 years. It has an incubation period of 2 to 4 weeks, after which the symptoms of mumps start to show up which are accompanied by fever, and swelling in the parotoid salivary glands which can cause the face to look swollen in the bottom. mumps can last up to a week or more depending on the immunity of the person and severity of the case. To learn more about the disease you can read about its causes and symptoms from Healthline.

Why the National Immunisation Schedule does include the mumps vaccine?

Despite mumps being curable and preventable with vaccines, it has not been included in the Universal Immunisation Programme(UIP). The reason is stated as it being a no-mortality disease, meaning it does not cause deaths rapidly. Hence, it has been given a low significance to public health. However,  IAP always stated that this underestimation of the mumps public health significance is because of less data available, and poor records of the disease and follow-up data of patients. There is little to no data on the long-term effects of the disease. there are also very few public cases of the disease available to study.

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