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Fears as city mumps outbreak escalates
THE mumps outbreak sweeping the country has escalated even
further after 40 new cases emerged over the past few days.
Doctors say this is the worst outbreak of the disease in
years and have been urging parents who have shunned the
triple MMR jab to have their children inoculated.
In the week ending March 12, in total 75 new cases were
discovered with 40 of them in the Greater Glasgow area.
The disease is continuing to spread across the west of
Scotland.
In Lanarkshire, doctors reported 17 suspected cases and
seven discovered in Argyll and Clyde.
The figures are even more alarming as last year, when just
three new cases of mumps were discovered in the same period
throughout the whole of Scotland.
It is affecting teenagers and people in their early 20s who
did not receive the controversial measles, mumps and rubella
vaccine when they were children because it was not
available.
Mumps can cause partial deafness in extreme cases and
develop into non-fatal viral meningitis.
Claims that the triple vaccine is linked to autism have led
to the take-up rate falling below the 95% herd immunity
level necessary to protect the population as a whole.