Singles vaccines, is it true there are no mumps available?

[mummytowillow]

Hi

The time has come for DD to have the MMR and I'm really not happy giving to her, hubby has agreed we will do the singles but on DH2000 website I noticed that the mumps is not coming in until 2009??

So if this is true, any ideas where I can get it? We live in Kent but willing to travel to London etc?

bleurgh - I agree. Everyone I know had measles & mumps. Nobody had any complications. Nobody died. And this was 35 years ago, in Turkey, so not what you would consider the height of medical care and sophistication.

oh so I should get my kid done because you made a mistake?

er... re-read my post. I DON'T KNOW! And at this point nor do I care as long as it's not MY child.

And am a prolific poster because you keep asking me questions which I HAVE answered. I am not going hunting for the latest stats as am not that bothered anymore - was bothered when deciding between singles and MMR though but that was 4 years ago.

If anyone WANTS the latest stats they can do their own reading.

Am guessing you haven't immunised - fine - that's YOUR decision but it's different to mine. Simple.

Have posted as much as I am going to on this thread - no more questions and I will not be a prolific poster. Any further reading - do yourself.

No I did not make a mistake - they used to guarantee it - obviously don't anymore and say so. Goodybye folks - better things to do on a Sunday.

well i'm not going to vaccinate because a pharmaceutical company made a mistake

don't try to sound superior as if the rest of us don't have anything better to do

silly

So you say mumps is a killer disease but hasn't killed anyone in the UK as far back as anyone can remember, and you can't be bothered to search the facts to evidence your claims.

Would you believe that distracts from your credibility.

On the other hand, you vaccinated your children against measles and mumps, but have little idea for how long they are immunised, nor IF they are immunised AT ALL (MMR not even close to 100% effective) and you are keeping your fingers crossed that the rest of the world will vaccinate their babies so that your older children don't get them.

Sorry, but I don't see that happening.

CoteDAzur - I think that may be slightly disingenuous (albeit not deliberately). There have been deaths from complications of mumps but they tend to affect those children with compromised immune systems - much like any disease would. Consequently they aren't always publicised as 'died of mumps'. I had mumps as a kid though, it was bloody horrible and left me with long term problems which happily went as I became an adult but did cause me a lot of pain as a child.

I agree actually with your sentiment - vax don't always work and even when they do it's rarely lifelong immunity. But conversely I've had chickenpox twice - so clearly natural immunity doesn't always last either (particularly with rapidly morphing strains of illness).

I held off giving my daughter the MMR till last month and she was sick for three weeks - very sick. I won't be giving her the second jab and I will be getting individual jabs for DS. Sadly I was heavily influenced in getting the MMR by a major measles outbreak in my area which has caused major disability in a couple of kids who live here - coupled with the lack of availability of single vax supplies.

People should know about Vitamin A. It should be publicised and recommended. For goodness sake they put it in biscuits to protect third world children from the worst effects of measles. Why can you only find out about it if you're interested enough to ask a lot of questions?

In response to the op, we sued the clinin in Bath for both girls and dd2 had the mumps booster one in August.

We did have ot wait a while, I think about 6 months, but she was still vaccinated sooner than if she'd had her MMR booster.

They are very helpful and am sure they can answer any questions for you.

0.0008% (102) of hospital consultant episodes were for mumps in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

94% of hospital consultant episodes for mumps required hospital admission in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

62% of hospital consultant episodes for mumps were for men in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

38% of hospital consultant episodes for mumps were for women in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

95% of hospital consultant episodes for mumps required emergency hospital admission in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

4.7 days was the mean length of stay in hospitals for mumps in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

1 days was the median length of stay in hospitals for mumps in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

19 was the mean age of patients hospitalised for mumps in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

55% of hospital consultant episodes for mumps occurred in 15-59 year olds in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

4% of hospital consultant episodes for mumps occurred in people over 75 in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

0% of hospital consultant episodes for mumps were single day episodes in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

0.0007% (375) of hospital bed days were for mumps in England 2002-03 (Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health, England, 2002-03)

Incidence (annual) of Mumps: 387 annual cases notified in USA 1999 (MMWR 1999); rare due to MMR vaccination

Incidence Rate: approx 1 in 702,842 or 0.00% or 387 people in USA [about data]

Incidence extrapolations for USA for Mumps: 387 per year, 32 per month, 7 per week, 1 per day, 0 per hour, 0 per minute, 0 per second.

I'm currently looking up the exact numbers for the UK on the HPA website (which is bloody slow!)

Exceptionally slow - go www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733833790 here for the figures - mumps is on the up however the figures for death are not recorded as such because most deaths from mumps occur from viral menigitis - and because of the way viral meningitis presents, it's hard to discern the difference between mumps instigated meningitis and other types.

ATEOTD it's a personal choice for parents. If you believe your child is at risk, it's up to you to make a reasoned choice. I've decided to immunise DD and will do so for DS because I believe mumps is actually quite dangerous - not because it'll cause orchiditis or anything painful but simple to fix but because I believe that once you have an infection spiral it's difficult to control which way it goes.

Has anyone yet answered cote d'azur's question re thwe last death in the UK? If it were me in your position , with a dd I would not bother with the mumps jab yet ( and no need for rubella until she gets near child-bearing age) and certainly not do MMR just to get that - just get it when it becomes available.

WWMC, wow, that's an amazing effort to go to in order to share, thank you.

On your last post.. it would be an extremely rare child (surely) who presented with mumps viral meningitis who had had no symptoms of mumps thus preventing a diagnosis of viral meningitis caused by mumps.

I suspect statistical sophistry at least in that particular element.

not from you though WMMC.

Thing is, a lot of illnesses can result in awful things. Chickenpox complications, in rare cases can cause meningitis and encephalitis, yet we are reluctant to vaccinate against that. The argument that an illness can cause something severe in rare circumstances is not, IMO, a reason to vaccinate.

Surely it makes sense, if you want to vaccinate against mumps, to do so when it is likely to become more dangerous? Not when it is going to wear off in a few years, just before they might need it? The rubella part is just as ridiculous. We vaccinate mainly to protect pregnant women, yet we no longer offer (in anywhere I am aware of, maybe there are exceptions) vaccinations to teenage girls who are the ones likely to fall accidentally pregnant. Instead we give it to children in whom it wears off, just before they might actually need it.

Why would any vaccine be 'hard to get'? Surely we can make it in any quantity we like according to how many customers there are.

I can see why the supply might run low if suddenly a lot of people realised singles were better, but then a lot more would be ordered yes?

Sorry if this is off topic but I had the MMR for my son despite the scares. The reason for this was that my brother wasn't given the whooping cough jab in the 1970s because there was a scare about it. He got whooping cough and nearly died. He survived but has long term problems (thankfully nothing too major that he could not overcome) which resulted from the brain damage he got.

I know it's not mumps but I think we forget sometimes just how serious these infections can be. My Mum just says that if she had realized how serious whooping cough could be that she would have had the jab for my brother.

Off topic and not what the 1st poster asked for. This is such a hot topic here and I try to stay out of it because I don't have any balanced view about it. My brother was lucky to survive - thank goodness for excellent medical care.

msdisillusioned, The choice is usually between having them combined in the MMR or as seperate jabs, but still having them.

What I don't like is that the complications of illnesses are taken seriously yet the complications of vaccines are brushed off as a necessary evil.

I would be very interested to know percentages in terms of complications arising from illnesses such as mumps, or whooping cough, compared to anything resulting from a vaccination. If those figures exist that is.

I mean, people say that it is easy to forget how bad some complications can be, as an argument for vaccination. But then disregard the complications from the other side as collateral damage.

My only thought on people who choose not to vaccinate is that the risk to their children is significantly lessened by those who do choose to vaccinate.
"( and no need for rubella until she gets near child-bearing age)" ...Yes but if she were to catch it she could pass it on to a pregnant woman couldn't she? Unlikely I know but so are a lot of the arguments on this thread.
The only certainty is that the more parents who decide not to vaccinate the more likely an epidemic of one of these childhood illnesses will become. Then we will see if those who talk of mortality rates and the risks associated with catching these childhood illnesses are just scaremongering.
I have had direct experience of a child allegedly (I have to say that as a direct link has never been proven in his case) damaged by a vaccine and I also used to know a child who was left blind and hearing impaired because her mum caught rubella in pregancy.
The decision to vaccinate or not was not one I took lightly. It caused me alot of anguish and in fact my DD has only just had a MMR booster at age 11. It is a very personal choice that we make on behalf of our children. I chose to vaccinate my dcs and if in doing so I have helped protect a child who couldn't have the vaccine either on medical grounds or through parental choice then thats ok. It's just that I believe that the fewer parents like me there are the greater the risk to the children of parents who chose not to vaccinate and, more importantly imo, to those who cannot have vaccines for medical reasons. Those are the children who are at the greatest risk of side effects from the diseases too.

Are you sure you can get a single mumps vaccine?

I'm not immune to rubella which was picked up during pregnancy, and looked into getting a single rubella vaccine, but was told that I could only get MMR.

Am not keen to get it whilst breast feeding despite the reassurances....

kiddiz, I didn't say that there was no need for the rubella vaccination until a woman reaches childbearing age, but your argument about children passing it on can easily be reversed. If there was a regular schedule for vaccination among women who were at childbearing age, then they wouldn't catch it, would they? And we wouldn't need to vaccinate children to whom it is not that dangerous. And then the natural immunity would rise.

Whilst I agree with you about children who cannot have the vaccines for medical reasons, and this is such a complicated and emotive subject, it just seems bizarre to me to vaccinate all the children against a disease with the main purpose of protecting a sector of the population (pregnant women) who could be vaccinated themselves if some thought was put into it. I mean, I remember being given the rubella jab at around 12 or so (would need to be earlier I think). What happened to that?

Apologies to the OP for getting so incredibly off topic this clinic offers single jabs in London, and on a Saturday and I can find no mention of a mumps shortage on the sire.

Although they do say in the FAQ that there is sometimes a shortage of the mumps, so I would give them a call.