Mumps

mumps , also called epidemic parotitis, acute contagious disease caused by a virus and characterized by inflammatory swelling of the salivary glands. It frequently occurs as an epidemic and most commonly affects young persons who are between 5 and 15 years of age.

The incubation period is about 17 to 21 days after contact; danger of transmission begins one week before symptoms appear and lasts about two weeks. Mumps generally sets in with symptoms of a slightly feverish cold, soon followed by swelling and stiffening in the region of the parotid salivary gland in front of the ear. The swelling rapidly increases and spreads toward the neck and under the jaw, involving the numerous glands there. The condition is often found on both sides of the face. Pain is seldom severe, nor is there much redness or any tendency to discharge pus; there is, however, interference with chewing and swallowing. After four or five days the swelling subsides.

In patients past puberty, there is occasionally swelling and tenderness in other glands, such as the testicles in males (orchitis) and the breasts (mastitis) or ovaries (oophoritis) in females, and, rarely, involvement of the pancreas, but these are of short duration and usually of no serious significance. The testicles may become atrophied, but sterility from this cause is uncommon. Meningoencephalitis (inflammation of the brain and its membranous covering) is a fairly common concomitant of mumps, but the outlook for recovery is favourable.

Mumps itself requires no special treatment; a single attack usually confers lifelong immunity. Infection with mumps virus was once common in childhood, but the frequency of infection was drastically reduced with the introduction in 1967 of routine immunization for prevention of the disease with a vaccine made from attenuated (weakened) live mumps virus. This vaccine is administered after the age of about one year, often in combination with measles and rubella vaccines.