KATV reports that a student at Benton High has been diagnosed with mumps. The student is no longer contagious, according to Benton School District Superintendent Mike Skelton.
The Arkansas Department of Health currently has 2,709 cases of mumps under investigation, deemed an “active outbreak.”
From the Department of Health:
Throughout this outbreak, 90% to 95% of school-aged children and 30% to 40% of adults involved in the outbreak have been fully immunized. The vaccine is not perfect. Two doses of the MMR shot are about 88% effective at preventing the mumps. That means that if you have 100 people who are fully vaccinated, 88 of them will be fully protected. The remaining 12 will still be vulnerable to mumps. If it were not for the vaccine, however, we would be seeing many, many more cases of the mumps. Also, we have only seen a few cases with complications, like swelling of the brain or testicles. Normally, we would expect to see many more persons with complications. This tells us that even though some vaccinated individuals are still getting the mumps, they are experiencing mild disease. The vaccine remains the best protection we have against the mumps.
If there are students with vaccine exemptions in a school where the mumps outbreak hits:
In response to the outbreak, ADH is requiring students in the same school with vaccine exemptions for the MMR (Mumps, Measles, and Rubella) vaccine to be excluded from school for 26 days from the date of exposure and until the outbreak has ended. Students with non-medical exemptions, who receive the recommended doses of MMR vaccine, may return to school immediately.
Here’s a full list of schools and school districts impacted by the mumps outbreak.