Monday, August 27, 2012

Remind me - what does that other "M" stand for?

MMR - Mumps, Measles, Rubella

Not enough children in the UK, especially those at middle/high school age, have full (i.e. 2x) MMR coverage, which has led to a slow and sustained measles outbreak across the UK (Just the Vax passim here and here). Now the MMR protects against three diseases, measles of course, but also mumps and rubella. The HPA North East has issued a health warning, since they have seen a 400% increase in mumps cases in April to June 2012 (133) over 32 in the same period of 2011. Almost half of these cases are in 15 to 24 year olds. While those may be un/under-vaccinated because of the MMR manufactuversy, a new "generation" of kids is unvaccinated against mumps because clinics offering single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines have been unable to source the mumps from anywhere for the last couple of years now.
Worse yet, rubella cases have reached 57 in the first 6 months of the year, exceeding annual rubella case counts of the past 9 years. This is a typical pattern, where measles outbreaks happen, mumps and rubella are also occurring - a sure sign that 2xMMR prevents all three - go get your child (or yourself) caught up, if must be with MMR, even if mumps is the only shot they are missing.

1 comment:

  1. I remember a long time ago that someone was arguing that girls do not need to get vaccinated for mumps. He never responded when I asked him if he decided that they less deserving of boys to have their hearing. Since mumps used to be one of the most common cause of post-lingual deafness.

    I also kept pointing to report that showed an outbreak causing "27 reports of orchitis, 11 meningitis, four encephalitis, four deafness, and one each of oophoritis, mastitis, pancreatitis, and unspecified complications." I asked him if he thought the deafness, enchphalitis and oophoritis were good things, especially the last one (which happens only to those who have ovaries). He never did give me a straight answer.

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