Before coming to the University, first-year Engineering student Stephanie Paredes had barely even heard of the mumps.
"I felt like it was something from the '50s," Paredes said.
Since becoming the first of now five University students diagnosed with probable cases of the mumps, Paredes has gotten to know a lot more about the highly contagious illness typified by swollen glands.
Paredes said she came down with the illness last weekend and returned to the University yesterday after being sent home to recuperate.
In spite of the serious complications that occasionally result from a mumps infection, Paredes said she wasn't really worried about the illness.
"I feel fine," Paredes said. "I think it might have been a little blown out of proportion."
According to Lilian Peake, director of the Thomas Jefferson Health District, a case of mumps is a cause for concern.
"We're watching the situation closely," Peake said.
At the disease's onset, the mumps is usually characterized by nonspecific, influenza-like symptoms such as fever and tiredness. Many viruses exhibit the same initial behavior, known as a viral prodrome, according to Peake. After a few days, classic mumps symptoms -- salivary gland swelling and swelling of the parotid glands -- often develop.
According to Peake, 30 to 40 percent of mumps patients experience these classic symptoms, 40 to 50 percent experience nonspecific symptoms and 20 percent experience no symptoms at all.
On rare occasions, the mumps can cause serious complications. Viral meningitis, which is less serious than bacterial, develops in about one to 10 percent of mumps cases with peritis, swelling of the parotid glands.
Epididymo-orchitis, the swelling of the testicles, occurs in 20 to 30 percent of post-pubescent males who contract the mumps. Oophoritis, the inflammation of the ovaries, develops in about five percent of post-pubescent females. Other, even rarer complications include pancreatitis, deafness, arthritis and encephalitis.
The real threat of mumps comes not from the medical risks involved but from its highly contagious nature, according to Peake.
"In an unvaccinated population, you'd expect an infected person to pass it to two other people," Peake said, adding that the University does not fall into this category.
The University has at least a 98 percent vaccination rate, according to Student Health Director James Turner.
This infection rate is about the same as influenza, although much lower than the infection rates of measles and chicken pox, she added.
For these reasons, most people born after 1957 have been vaccinated for the mumps, according to Peake.
The mumps vaccination takes the form of a live virus that has been weakened through many cell cultures, said Laura Nicolai, immunization epidemiologist of the Thomas Jefferson Health district.
Full vaccination requires two shots, one given at age 12 months and the other given at four or five years, usually before a child enters kindergarten.
According to Nicolai, the two-shot vaccination is estimated to be between 90 and 95 percent effective, while a single shot is estimated to be about 80 percent effective. For this reason health officials advise people to get both doses.
"If someone did not know their vaccination history it would be safe for them to get an additional dose," Nicolai added.
She recommends vaccination for everyone in the University community.
"That's not only for their protection but that also to help shorten the duration of any potential outbreak," Nicolai said.
This year has seen a number of mumps outbreaks in the Midwestern United States. In Iowa alone, 1950 confirmed and probable cases have been reported this year. Of those cases, one-quarter were college students, and just less than half had been fully vaccinated.
Paredes contracted the illness in spite of having been fully vaccinated.
Paredes's suitemate, Eve Cohn, said no one in the suite is particularly alarmed by their possible exposure.
"On the whole it hasn't changed anything; we're not avoiding each other," Cohn said. "We're just not sharing drinks, just the basic stuff."
Paredes and her Fitzhugh suitemates have responded to her infection with humor and solidarity.
One of Paredes' suitemates created a Facebook group called "Mumps Pride," which includes the rest of the girls in the suite. The suitemates also plan to get T-shirts that read "My mumps, my mumps, my mumps."
Paredes said the experience has been an interesting one for her and will one day make a good story to tell.
"It's a funny beginning to the next four years," Paredes said.
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