Measles And Mumps Alert

Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by Stenberg-Tendys W.L. in Health

Measles and mumps are meant to be childhood diseases that are a thing long past. However, a measles alert has been issued last week by The Northern Territory Centre for Disease Control, after an infected passenger passed through Darwin, Australia.

The centre says the person flew to Darwin from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on Jetstar flight JQ74 on Australia Day and then left on the same flight bound for Sydney at 7am. Centre for Disease Control Director Vicki Krause said, “There is still a small risk that other passengers and visitors to the airport may have been exposed.”

Head of Disease Surveillance, Dr Peter Markey, explained that measles is a very contagious viral illness spread between people through coughing and sneezing. “The symptoms of measles are fever, cough, runny nose and sore eyes which occur usually 10 days after exposure to a case, followed by a red blotchy rash three to four days later. To be immune to measles you need to have had measles previously, or have had two doses of the measles vaccine.”

The measles alert applies until February 19.

Across the world, more than 300 people have been diagnosed with the mumps. Suburban New York is seeing the nation’s largest outbreak of the disease in years.

A health official says 303 people in the Rockland County towns of Monsey and New Square have been diagnosed with the highly infectious disease. Almost all the cases are among Orthodox Jews.

Investigators say the outbreak started in August 2009 at a Jewish summer camp in Sullivan County with an 11-year-old boy who brought the disease from England. It has since spread to Jewish communities in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Orange County in upstate New York.

Mumps is spread by coughing and sneezing with the most common symptoms being fever, headache and swollen salivary glands under the jaw.

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