Mumps cases at KU rises to seven

By By Frank Tankard (Contact)

Thursday, April 6, 2006

The count of mumps cases at the University of Kansas rose to seven Wednesday, with six probable and one confirmed. Four other probable cases have been reported in Douglas County.

Patricia Denning, chief of staff at Watkins Memorial Health Center, called the situation an “outbreak” in a press conference and said local health officials weren’t sure why people who had been vaccinated were contracting the viral infection.

Kim Ens, disease control program coordinator for the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, said mumps could be spreading to Kansas from Iowa, where 300 cases have been confirmed as of Monday.

The KU student who has been confirmed with mumps is a 19-year-old female student living in McCollum Hall. Denning said one student with a probable case of mumps lived in Oliver Hall, and that three others belonged to the same sorority. Though she didn’t say which sorority or whether they lived together.

Denning said that the first of the seven cases at the University occurred in early February. The one person with a confirmed case of mumps tested positive on March 19, though Denning said the University didn’t find out until Monday because the student went to an off-campus doctor.

Denning said no one could be sure how many KU students had mumps because many went to doctors who don’t report to the University. Ens said area doctors were caught off guard by the mumps cases but should now be aware when diagnosing patients.

“That’s just not something that docs had seen lately,” she said.

Douglas County had a large outbreak of mumps from Oct. 1988 to April 1989, with 269 cases reported, Ens said. Mumps vaccines have been offered since 1967 and vaccinations are required for students attending Kansas public schools. In Iowa, 68 percent of those who developed mumps symptoms were fully vaccinated.

Denning said mumps, like other communicable diseases, is spread easily at colleges because of the proximity of students in residence halls and classes. In Iowa, college students account for 21 percent of its 300 reported cases, and the median age of the people showing symptoms is 21.

Denning urged students experiencing symptoms of mumps to visit Watkins Health Center and to stay home from school and work.

“Do not panic,” Denning said. “Mumps is an unpleasant infection. People feel bad and it hurts ... But the good new is it’s not common to develop serious complications, and fatalities are very rare.”

— Edited by Timon Veach

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