Nearly 15,500 cases of suspected mumps were reported in England and Wales last year as an outbreak of the disease among people in their late teens and early 20s accelerated alarmingly.
The big rise has occurred despite repeated warning to universities and military bases to inoculate young people for whom the disease can be particularly painful, and in a small minority of cases, a serious long-term threat to health.
More than half of the suspected cases, 8,104, have been confirmed by laboratory analysis. Only 1,529 cases were confirmed in 2003, although that figure represented a threefold increase on 2002 and double that of 2001. The latest figures, published on the Health Protection Agency (HPA) website, illustrate how quickly the outbreak is growing. In the first four weeks of 2005, nearly 4,900 suspect cases were reported to the agency, compared with just 358 in January last year.
The north-west and south-west of England have been particularly hit with over 1,000 cases confirmed in each region among 15-24-year-olds last year. In 1996 there were just 96 confirmed cases nationally among people of all ages.
The young people are most at risk of disease because they missed the introduction of the combined measles, mumps and rubella jab in 1988. Before that date there was no mumps vaccine, and in the bad old days of mumps epidemics as many as 1,200 people were admitted to hospital. The Department of Health and the HPA have advised universities and other places where young people routinely mix together for long periods to offer people two doses of the MMR vaccine three months apart. But it is up to individual institutions to make their own decisions.
Although rarely fatal, the disease is particularly unpleasant after puberty. The condition can lead to inflammation of the testes in up to a fifth of infected young men, and, very rarely, to sterility.
Up to one in 20 young women can have swelling in their ovaries and the disease can cause spontaneous abortion early in pregnancy. Other rare dangers include inflammation of the brain and deafness in one ear.
Children are now routinely inoculated between 12 and 15 months and between three and five. However, takeup of the first MMR jab among under-twos is only around 80% as a result of the dispute of whether it is linked to autism.
