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Last Year’s SU Mumps Outbreak Was Likely A Fluke Last Year's Mumps Outbreak Was Likely A Fluke

Conditions created a "perfect storm" that is unlikely to recur

By Wyatt Barmore-Pooley

University student receives a mumps shot
© 2006 AP Images

A year removed from the mumps outbreak on Syracuse University’s campus, Onondaga County Health Department Medical Director Quoc Nguyen says that last year was likely a fluke

“I think it had to be almost a perfect storm for it to happen.”

Last year, mumps spread quickly among students in close contact who were the age that the vaccine is least effective. Nguyen credits S-U students with helping to contain the disease.

“They learned about the disease, they taught each other. They … they have all the … following all the guidelines, and that may be the successful end of it, and they, many of them got the third dose.”

 

Mumps vaccine
** FILE ** A nurse holds a vial of the mumps vaccine during a clinic sponsored by the Story County Public Health Dept., on April 26, 2006, at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The number of mumps cases in Iowa has declined dramatically over the past few weeks, and the outbreak appears to be contained, state public health officials said Friday, June 16, 2006. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
© AP Images

After last year, the Department is taking no chances. Nguyen says that they recieve a lab report every single day, hoing to catch any suspected cases early to prevent another outbreak.

 

NGUYEN: I think it had to be almost a perfect storm for it to happen.

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