School vaccination drive to tackle mumps

PUBLIC health officials have taken the drastic step of writing to schools offering to vaccinate students against mumps in an attempt to crack down on an increasing number of outbreaks of the disease.

Already in 2009, there has been a 15-fold increase in the number of infections — 1,957 compared to 128 for the same period last year.

In an effort to control the growing number of outbreaks, the HSE has written to school principals offering the MMR (Mumps, Measles and Rubella) vaccine to transition, fifth and sixth year students in secondary schools prior to the summer break. The letters went out this week.

Consultant in public health medicine, Dr Brenda Corcoran, said the HSE’s action was unique, but necessary.

“Usually we offer vaccines as a preventative measure. This is the first time we have gone into schools in response to an outbreak,” Dr Corcoran said.

The initiative to tackle mumps outbreaks began in 2007 among third-level students where the number of cases of infection was particularly high. However, Dr Corcoran, from the HSE’s National Immunisation Office, said the vaccine uptake was poor and they have decided to target second-level students.

“There have been outbreaks locally and regionally and we haven’t been able to control them. The number of cases notified to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre has shot through the roof. We are targeting schools because outbreaks are most common where groups of people come together and are increasingly frequent among those aged 15 to 24,” Dr Corcoran said.

The ongoing outbreaks have been blamed on the fact that many older teenagers have not had two doses of the MMR vaccine.

Many parents chose not to vaccinate their children after studies published in 1998 in the British medical journal, the Lancet, claimed to have found a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

That study has since been discredited, but public health officials believe the children who were not vaccinated at the time are suffering the fallout.

Recent studies estimate that one dose of MMR is approximately 80% effective. Two doses make the vaccine 88-95% effective.

Mumps is an acute viral illness that causes fever, headache and painful, swollen salivary glands. It requires isolation or quarantine, and can cause people to miss up to two weeks from school, work, studying, taking exams or socialising. Generally complications are mild but mumps can cause meningitis, deafness or inflammation of the pancreas or testicles.

Teams from the HSE public health departments and local health offices will contact second-level schools this week to schedule immunisation clinics. The vaccine will be free of charge.

More information is available from www.mumps.ie or the HSE infoline 1850-241850.