Mumps, which causes cheeks to swell, flu-like symptoms and is contagious, has found its way to the Edinburg campus. Three students may have contracted the viral disease in Mission, officials say.
“We’re aware of three cases of students on campus that have the mumps,”John Krouse, dean of the UTRGV School of Medicine and executive vice president for Health Affairs, said Wednesday afternoon. “Apart from that, we don’t know if there are other potential cases, so I think we just need to be vigilant and be aware if any other cases do develop.”
Rick Gray, director of Health Services, said that as of the morning of April 3, there were a total of eight cases that Hidalgo County Health and Human Services is working with. He said there is a place in Mission that is popular among college students, where the cases may have originated.
“The locus of the mumps is in a local institution in Mission, it’s not on campus,” Gray said. “We just happened to have three of our kids that went to that facility and then they contracted mumps there.”
He said that due to protocols, Hidalgo County Health and Human Services could not disclose the name of the establishment.
The first student was confirmed to have mumps through lab tests on March 28 on the Edinburg campus, and the second student was tested on April 1.
“I think that the university, by announcing that they had had a case, it kind of puts everybody on the alert and if they do come down with signs and symptoms, they’ll get checked,” said Frank Ambriz, a clinical associate professor and a practicing physician assistant for over 36 years. “If they do have the mumps, they just need to stay away from school and close contact with other individuals.”
Eddie Olivarez, chief administrative officer of Hidalgo County Health and Human Services, said these particular cases are unusual.
“Mumps is not common in Hidalgo County,” Olivarez said. “We might only have one or two cases a year. What’s uncommon is that these are university-aged adults. We usually see them in children, but nonetheless, we’re investigating the situation.”
He said there are over 250 cases of mumps statewide.
“However, a lot of the cases, I don’t have an exact figure, but I would say way over 90 percent of the cases are, basically, out of the federal detention centers, throughout the state, involving immigration,” Olivarez said.
He emphasized, however, that the cases in Hidalgo County are local.
“I want to make it very clear … these are local cases,” Olivarez said. “There’s no affiliation, that we know of yet, to the immigration status or the immigrants that are coming here.”
He said Hidalgo County has a vaccination rate above 80 percent, which is higher than the national average.
Cases of the mumps are “growing dramatically” nationwide, Gray said.
“It’s the worst that it’s been in quite a while,” he said. “The last big outbreak down here was two years ago, after Spring Break. … I think that they had like 30 cases on the Island but we had no idea how many kids got it after they got home to other states.”
Asked on the possibility of mumps spreading to the Brownsville campus, Krouse replied, “Well, mumps is a communicable disease and if any individual who is infected is traveling, that wherever they go, there is the possibility that whoever comes
in contact with these people could become infected.”
Gray said he did not want to minimize the situation due to how contagious mumps is and the long incubation period it has that “disrupts everybody’s life for a month.” He said that because finals and graduation are coming up soon, in about six weeks, it could have a big effect on the school year.
Mumps is a viral disease that typically begins with a few days of fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, loss of appetite, difficulty chewing, and pain and swelling in the salivary glands, according to hopkinsmedicine.org. Mumps is “easily spread by airborne droplets” and usually takes “two to three weeks to appear.” The site also states that complications of mumps usually occur more often in adults than children.
Ambriz said some complications of mumps include inflammation of several parts of the body, such as encephalitis, inflammation of the brain; meningitis, inflammation of the brain and spinal cord membranes; pancreatitis, inflammation of the pancreas; inflammation of the testicles or ovaries; tenderness in the breasts; and hearing loss.
“Basically, you treat it supportively, meaning you keep the fever under control with medicines,” Krouse said. “To do that, you give fluids to make sure the people are well hydrated, people get bedrest. So, there’s not a specific treatment. It’s something that will run its course over time, like other viral illnesses do.”
Ambriz said individuals who are unsure if they have received both injections of the MMR vaccine, and want to protect against the disease, can receive a booster shot.
Cristel Escalona, an assistant professor in clinical pediatrics and physician in charge of the Student Health Center, said that the usual cost of an MMR booster at the Student Health Center on campus is $85 because they do not accept health insurance.
“That is a lot of money, but the health department will give you any vaccine for $5 or if you have health insurance, it’s totally free,” Escalona said. “You can stop by any CVS or Walgreens and get the booster.”
She said the university is working closely with the health department in visiting each of the classes that the students were taking, talking to all of the students and letting them know that they may have come into contact with someone that was sick with mumps.
Escalona recommended that students get an MMR booster.
“We’re trying to get the [Hidalgo County] health department to give us, like, a stockpile of MMR vaccines, so that it’s not $85,” she said. “It’s the state health department’s stockpile and, hopefully, we will be able to give those, either for free or whatever the health department usually charges, which is like $5.”
No vaccine has 100 percent coverage.
“However, mumps, if they did receive the vaccine twice, they would get about 88 percent coverage,” Ambriz said. “That means that even though they got the two vaccines, they could still come down with the mumps but in a milder form. In either case, it’s still contagious.”
