According to the United States immigration officials, more than 2,200 people who have been exposed to a rare mumps outbreak in two detention centers are isolated.
On Tuesday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that the 25-day isolation has started on March 7 at detention centers in Pine Prairie, Louisiana, and Aurora, Colorado.
In the past year, 236 detainees have had probable or confirmed mumps in 51 centers, according to a spokesman. And there were no confirmed cases of mumps from 2016 to 2018 at any facilities.
In 2016, there had been a measles outbreak at an immigrant detention center in Eloy, Arizona, which had contributed to a statewide measles outbreak after a few employees had refused to get immunized.
Like measles, mumps is yet another contagious viral disease that can be prevented by taking the MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella) vaccine.
It is best known for its characteristic clinical features such as the puffy cheeks and swollen jaw, which is a result of infected and swollen salivary glands. Other signs and symptoms include a headache, fever, myalgia, fatigue, and loss of appetite.
Mumps infections have dramatically dropped off by 99 percent since the U.S. mumps vaccination began in the late 1960s. It is now extremely rare.
However, mumps outbreaks still occur, especially in regions where people have close, prolonged contact, according to the CDC. Even people who had one or two doses of the MMR vaccine can still get the infection during these outbreaks. Researchers have no idea why that is the case, though they opine it could be because of a poor immune response to the MMR vaccine. They also believe that the ability of the immune system to fight against the infection might have decreased over time.
