Rise in mumps cases blamed on youngsters missing out on MMR jabs

Published on Wednesday 23 December 2009 21:41

CASES of mumps in Scotland have increased by almost 50 per cent in the past year, figures revealed yesterday.

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) said since the start of 2009 they had received 1,039 reports of mumps, of which 532 were confirmed by laboratory tests. This compared with 694 reports for the same period in 2008, including 166 confirmed cases.

HPS said the majority of cases were in young adults, aged 15-24, who had often not been immunised against mumps.

Experts urged young people offered the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab as part of catch-up campaigns to take it up, because of the possible serious complications of mumps.

In 2004 and 2005, cases of mumps in Scotland and the rest of the UK increased massively, with more than 5,000 cases in 2005 in Scotland alone. Since then, cases have dropped until this year.

An HPS spokeswoman said that before the MMR jab was introduced in 1988, people were immunised for measles and rubella with no protection against mumps.

When the jab was introduced, this left a group of children who were too old to receive MMR but who had not been exposed to mumps from younger children who had been immunised.

Some received only one dose of MMR, as the change to two doses for the best protection only came in later.

The HPS spokeswoman said: "Before 1988, practically everyone would get mumps at some point, with some suffering effects such as deafness and other serious consequences.

"That means now you are either immune because you had it or, from 1988, you are immune because you were immunised against it.

"Then there was this layer of children who were just a bit too old to be immunised, and then you had these younger children who did not get exposed to the virus, so didn't catch it and didn't become immune either."

The expert said this meant that this group could go on to contract mumps when they went to college or university and started mixing with a different group of people.

She said she suspected the latest rise was due to another wave of susceptible adults being exposed to mumps.

In recent years, some health boards have run immunisation campaigns to encourage young people to get vaccinated.

The HPS spokeswoman said mumps was not always a mild illness. "The complications include viral meningitis," she said. "Hearing loss affects one in 20,000, but because it used to be such a common virus, lots of people were affected."

HPS also revealed that it had received 152 reports of measles in 2009, down from 207 in 2008. Whooping cough also dropped from 124 reports to 96, but cases of chickenpox increased from 11,284 in 2008 to 14,709.

HPS said the illness fluctuated from year to year and this increase was within the range seen in recent years.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "These HPS figures show how important MMR is in protecting people from very serious illness. It's never too late to complete the vaccination. Any 15-24-year-olds in this position are urged to speak to their GP."