• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Mumps Cases in NS Top 300; Sporting Event in Winnipeg Sparks BC, Mta Cases

Posted on: Friday, 25 May 2007, 21:00 CDT

By HANNAH ZITNER

HALIFAX (CP) - The number of mumps cases in Nova Scotia has climbed to 302 and will likely continue to grow, health officials said Friday, as the Maritime province's outbreak was linked to confirmed or suspected cases of the illness in other parts of the country.

Officials in Manitoba and British Columbia said a sporting event that drew participants from around the country to Winnipeg in early May is believed to have spread the disease to those two provinces.

Manitoba reported its first two cases in the ongoing outbreak on Friday. British Columbia said it is awaiting test results on two people who returned from the Winnipeg event and who have the symptoms of mumps. Two more British Columbians who were exposed at the event are under observation.

Dr. Joel Kettner, Manitoba's chief medical officer of health, said one participant who travelled to Winnipeg had been in Nova Scotia and developed mumps after arriving in the city. Given that the event happened in early May, if more people were infected, those cases should come to light soon, he said.

"If there was going to be an explosion of cases from this one exposure, yeah, I think we would have seen more than what we've seen," Kettner said from Winnipeg.

"We've got four now. There could be another few more that are going to become apparent in the next couple of days."

In Nova Scotia, the epicentre of the outbreak, public health officials said the increase of 30 cases over the past week is part of a normal outbreak cycle.

Medical health officer Dr. Robert Strang said doctors had anticipated an increase because of the infectious nature of the disease.

"We're past the peak of the outbreak, but it's going to be weeks to a few months - even well into the summer - before we really anticipate the outbreak being over," he said.

The outbreak began in February at Halifax-area universities and has since spread to six other provinces.

In its most recent update, posted on its website earlier this week, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported 45 cases in New Brunswick, two in Prince Edward Island and one in Alberta.

British Columbia has reported three cases, but the first was never tested and as a consequence doesn't meet the national criteria to be counted as a case.

The public health agency's tally only includes cases when there is either a positive test or when there are evident symptoms of mumps in a person who is known to have been in contact with a confirmed case.

Ontario's Ministry of Health said its count has now risen to 12 confirmed cases. Officials there are still investigating to determine if all the cases are linked to the Nova Scotia outbreak.

To date, more than 60 per cent of mumps patients are between the ages of 17 and 24.

Since the mid-1990s, children have been given two shots to prevent the mumps, measles and rubella. But young adults between 17 and 24 are most at risk because their age group never got that second booster shot.

Symptoms of the mumps include aches, pains, fever, loss of appetite and swollen saliva glands, although complications can sometimes be much more serious.

People with the mumps are typically told to stay home for nine days to prevent infecting others but can actually be contagious up to a week before they even show symptoms.

Others can become infected without ever developing symptoms.

Although the focus in Nova Scotia has been on the mumps, Strang said it's important to realize that the vaccine also guards against measles and rubella.

"It's not just about mumps. We have some recent measles activity around the world - there's an outbreak in Japan and there's been some other sporadic cases in the United States."

Strang said he's only aware of a couple of reported cases of the measles in Canada - none in Nova Scotia.

Source: Canadian Press

More News in this Category