Once You Get Mumps Can You Get It Again
Mumps is a contagious viral infection that used to be mutual in children earlier the introduction of the MMR vaccine.
Symptoms of mumps
Mumps is about recognisable by the painful swellings in the side of the face under the ears (the parotid glands), giving a person with mumps a distinctive "hamster face" appearance.
Other symptoms of mumps include headaches, joint pain, and a high temperature, which may develop a few days before the swelling of the parotid glands.
Of import: Coronavirus (COVID-xix)
At the moment information technology can exist hard to know what to practice if your child is unwell.
It'due south important to trust your instincts and get medical help if yous demand it.
When to come across a GP
Information technology's of import to contact a GP if y'all suspect mumps then a diagnosis can be made.
While mumps is non normally serious, the condition has similar symptoms to more serious types of infection, such equally glandular fever and tonsillitis.
Your GP can commonly brand a diagnosis subsequently seeing and feeling the swelling, looking at the position of the tonsils in the mouth and checking the person's temperature to run into if it's higher than normal.
Let your GP know in advance if yous're coming to the surgery so they tin can accept any necessary precautions to prevent the spread of infection.
If your GP suspects mumps, they should notify your local health protection team (HPT). The HPT will arrange for a sample of saliva to be tested to ostend or rule out the diagnosis.
Find your local health protection team on GOV.UK
How mumps is spread
Mumps is spread in the same way every bit colds and flu: through infected droplets of saliva that can exist inhaled or picked upwardly from surfaces and transferred into the mouth or nose.
A person is well-nigh contagious a few days before the symptoms develop and for a few days subsequently.
During this fourth dimension, information technology's of import to forestall the infection spreading to others, particularly teenagers and immature adults who have non been vaccinated.
If yous have mumps, yous can assist prevent it spreading by:
- regularly washing your hands with lather
- using and disposing of tissues when you lot sneeze
- avoiding schoolhouse or work for at least five days after your symptoms first develop
Preventing mumps
Y'all can protect your kid against mumps by making certain they're given the combined MMR vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella.
The MMR vaccine is part of the routine NHS childhood immunisation schedule.
Your child should be given 1 dose when they're around 12 to 13 months and a second booster dose at 3 years and 4 months.
Once both doses are given, the vaccine provides effectually 88% protection against mumps.
Anyone who did not have both doses of the MMR vaccine every bit a kid can contact a GP to conform to be vaccinated.
Treatment for mumps
There'south currently no cure for mumps, but the infection should pass within 1 or 2 weeks.
Handling is used to relieve symptoms and includes:
- getting plenty of bed balance and fluids
- using painkillers, such as ibuprofen and paracetamol – aspirin should non be given to children under 16
- applying a warm or cool compress to the swollen glands to aid salvage pain
Complications
Mumps unremarkably passes without causing serious damage to a person's health. Serious complications are rare.
But mumps tin lead to viral meningitis if the virus moves into the outer layer of the brain.
Other complications include swelling of the testicles or ovaries (if the afflicted person has gone through puberty).
Discover out more virtually the complications of mumps
Who's affected
Well-nigh cases of mumps occur in younger adults who did non receive the MMR vaccine equally part of their childhood vaccination schedule and did not have mumps as a child.
Older adults who were built-in in the UK earlier the vaccine was introduced are probable to accept had mumps as a child. Once y'all have been infected by the mumps virus, you commonly develop a life-long immunity to further infection.
The MMR vaccine was introduced in 1988. Adults born between 1980 and 1990 may not have been vaccinated equally children, and are less probable than older adults to have had mumps every bit a child.
Mumps is currently near common among people born in the late 1990s and early on 2000s who missed out on the MMR vaccine as children.
Page last reviewed: 24 September 2021
Next review due: 24 September 2024
Source: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/mumps/
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