Iowa Mumps Epidemic: Potential to Spread

Oh, you didn't know about it? I didn't either until today... Here's the story from AxcessNews:

"US health officials are investigating an outbreak of Mumps in Iowa that has spread to several mid-western states which is the largest outbreak of the viral infection in 20 years.

In Iowa where 605 confirmed cases of Mumps have been reported, mostly amongst university students between December and April 13th, Iowa health officials said the Mumps outbreak was is the highest number of confirmed cases across those mid-west states where other cases were found.

Normally, Iowa has 5 cases of Mumps throughout a given year.

The US department of health is also investigating dozens more cases of the Mumps in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. So far, health officials are at a loss as to where the viral infection originated.

What concerns federal health officials most are two Mumps-infected individuals who took flights throughout the mid-west, spreading the highly contagious infection across multiple states. The Iowa Department of Public Health identified two persons diagnosed with mumps who were potentially infectious during travel on nine different commercial flights involving two airlines between March 26, 2006 and April 2, 2006. The origin and arrival cities for these flights include Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, IA; Dallas, TX; Detroit, MI; Lafayette, AR; Minneapolis, MN; St. Louis, MO; Tucson, AZ; and Washington, D.C.

Friday, the US health department's Centers for Disease Control Sand Prevention issued a "Multi-state Health Advisory" after Iowa confirmed two of the individuals that were infected traveled to various states by air."

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Hope all the college-bound readers had your mumps shots as a kid, cause it looks like it's coming your way!