Lessons Learned From Maritimes Could Help With Mumps Outbreak in Alberta

By Shannon Montgomery, THE CANADIAN PRESS

CALGARY – Lessons learned from an ongoing outbreak of mumps in the Maritimes could be key in nipping a growing Alberta outbreak in the bud, say public health experts.

“We learned a lot from them, we may not have done what we did if Nova Scotia and New Brunswick” had not seen an outbreak earlier this year, said Vanessa Maclean, acting medical officer of health for the Chinook Health Region, where Alberta’s new outbreak first emerged.

As of Thursday, there were 111 confirmed cases of mumps, most of which are in southern Alberta.

The province is now offering free immunizations in two phases: first to post-secondary students, then to everyone in the high-risk population between the ages of 17 and 26, who only got a one-dose vaccine during childhood.

Those born before 1970 are assumed to have been exposed at some point in their life, and those younger have already been vaccinated in two stages.

“We jumped very quickly into mumps mass immunizations in this region, as well as across the province, and I think we did that because of the experience that occurred in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,” said Maclean.

Most of the 38 confirmed and 21 suspected cases in the Chinook Health Region have been connected to the University of Lethbridge and Lethbridge College.

In the Calgary area, however, most of the cases have not occurred in post-secondary institutions. In that case, six hockey teams have been affected, leading health officials to warn players not to share water bottles or mouth guards.

Mumps is an infection of the salivary glands that is caused by a virus. Usually symptoms are minor, and include aches, pains, fever and loss of appetite.

In rare cases, the virus can cause more serious brain infections and inflammation of reproductive organs.

That point is driven home in some graphic advertisements the province borrowed from Nova Scotia, where more than 700 cases of mumps have been reported since an outbreak began last February.

In one ad, a pair of flaming basketballs float side, with the heading “The swelling’s not so bad. It’s the severe testicular pain . . . “

Another ad shows a sheepish-looking girl in party clothes next to the warning: “Jill got the mumps. Then Jill partied with her friends. Poor Jill. Now all her friends hate her.”

Both ads stress that the mumps mean nine days without classes, friends or parties – and they’ve been so popular that the Chinook region has had trouble with posters vanishing.

Two of the cases could be linked to the Maritimes, but the majority haven’t been, according to Donna Schuhltz, a spokeswoman for Alberta Health.

The strain of mumps in Alberta is the same as in the ongoing outbreak in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, a previous outbreak in Alberta, and outbreaks in the U.K. and the United States, said Jeannette Macey, head of disease surveillance in the immunization division of the public health agency of Canada.

She said that recent outbreak is part of a push by the agency to develop guidelines on how to handle such events across the country.

“Their experience with it and the lessons that they learned from the early days are really helping the rest of the country. So the other provinces, if they’re faced with a problem, it’s much more clear what will work and what doesn’t work so well.”

In August, the public health agency recommended that provinces vaccinate their at-risk populations. Schuhltz said that a provincial advisory board looked at the issue, but that the vaccinations began as a direct result of the early Lethbridge-area cases.

Health Minister Dave Hancock said he is trying to figure out what happened in relation to the national advisory. He said when he heard about the cases in Lethbridge, he knew it was time to act.

“I moved immediately to say no, it has to be provincewide, this is serious,” he said.

More than 13,500 people have already been vaccinated, and clinics will be held into December at universities and colleges. A general immunization phase is set to start in early December to target the 475,000 people who could be at risk.

Yet it could be a little while before there’s a slowdown in the number of cases.

“We have not seen any downturn at all,” said Maclean, adding even after immunization it takes about 12 days for someone to be protected.

Dr. Judy MacDonald of the Calgary Health Region says she also expects to see more cases in the short term because the vaccination campaign is just now in full swing.

“At some point, we’ll find that we have vaccinated enough of the susceptible population that the virus (isn’t) finding anybody that it can infect, and we’ll see numbers taper off.”