U.S. mumps outbreak likely to worsen

April 20, 2006

Federal officials say the outbreak of mumps centered in the U.S. Midwest is likely to spread before it can be reined in with vaccinations and quarantines.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said 25,000 doses of vaccine are being shipped from its stockpile to Iowa, the center of the outbreak, and another 25,000 donated by Merck & Co. are headed to Iowa and six other affected states.

The number of cases has more than doubled in the past week, with at least 1,100 reported, The Washington Post said.

The epidemic has disproportionately affected young, healthy adults, including many college students, Gerberding said.

Mumps is a viral disease that is spread like the flu by infected people coughing and sneezing. Common symptoms are sore throat, body aches, fever and swollen glands in the jaw.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International


Rank 3 /5 (1 vote)
Tags

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Michael Stumpf a mathematics professor at Imperial College in London, and Mason Porter a lecturer at Oxford have teamed together to write and publish a perspective piece in Science regarding the in ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created 21 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 8 | with audio podcast report

Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'

A new study led by two Florida State University marketing professors finds that some frontline service employees who are rewarded for hikes in customer loyalty and satisfaction also may engage in "service ...

Other Sciences / Economics & Business

created 15 hours ago | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 7

The question of life in the ancient world

There’s a general feeling that we don’t get the Greeks – ancient or modern. Many, including heads of state like Angela Merkel, visibly shake their head in exasperation, rightly or wrongly, at ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created 20 hours ago | popularity 1.3 / 5 (3) | comments 4

Sonic Cradle lands spot in TED exhibition

A Simon Fraser University graduate student project that melds music, meditation and modern technology has landed a rare spot as an exhibit at TEDActive 2012 in Palm Springs, California this month.

Other Sciences / Other

created 17 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Do we no longer care about the collective good?

The Transformation of Solidarity, a book co-edited by University of Queensland sociologist Dr Mara Yerkes, tackles the subject of globalisation of national economies and societies where we put a high value ...

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Feb 06, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (8) | comments 39


Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)

The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...

Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago

(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...

Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...

New power source discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.

The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males

A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...