Outbreak of mumps in Ireland

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

The number of cases in the first two months of this year are about six times what they were last year. There's quite a good article about it in the Irish Times.

I wonder if they should considering offering the MMR free to the 'Wakefield' generation. According to that article baby MMR vaccinations fell to 70% during that time, and that is mostly the demographic getting mumps now. It would be a good time to catch them now while they are at university/college/secondary school.

Bloody anti vaxxers!

Sadly the anti vax movement is still going strong if my work is anything to go by. There's 8 of us working there and 2 of them are anti-vaxxers, one slightly militant about it too. I gave her the "I'd rather have a kid with autism than a dead one" line and she's stopped talking to me about it at least.

I haven't met any anti-vaxxers since I moved back to Ireland, nor known any kids in my DC's national school to get one of the mmr viruses. I knew a few in London (DS was a baby at the height of the Wakefield thingy). One of the mums used to get all panicked whenever she heard of a case of measles in the area, which was very often since we lived in Tower Hamlets.

Maybe my office just attracts the crazies then. .
Militant anti vaxer isn't just anti MMR, she think that all vaccinations are wrong, a conspiracy from pharmaceuticals, have loads of side effects/poison children....She's clearly batshit crazy but looks like a perfectly normal, intelligent, educated, well adjusted person in all other aspects.

I think mumps has been doing the rounds a lot in the last 6 months. DSis caught it at uni and she is fully vaccinated. Most of the department had it so could be a new strain MMR doesn't cover?

There's currently an outbreak in Nottingham of 223 cases. Stupid question - does that mean that those 223 were not vaccinated?

No, it doesn't mean all those that got mumps were unvaccinated. Mumps always seems to have been the dodgy part of the MMR, with a lower percentage of vaccinated children gaining immunity than for measles and rubella. There also seems to be a shorter time frame for the vaccine to remain effective so vaccinated immunity wanes earlier than normal disease induced immunity. I have never understood why they conflated a truly nasty disease (measles) with two usually mild diseases (when caught in childhood). I'm not anti-vaccine per se but I certainly sceptical of some of them.

There's a breakout of mumps at my kids school at the moment. Everyone affected is fully vaccinated.