Parents have one more thing to worry about this winter with mumps spike in SA

Any kind of swelling on your body would not be too much of a cause of concern on a normal day. But now, it's enough reason to get up and go see a doctor now as there’s a new outbreak to look out for – in especially children.

In May, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) issued a warning and confirmed a mumps outbreak in the country with 580 positive cases identified.

At the time, 280 of these cases were reported in KwaZulu-Natal while Mpumalanga, Gauteng and North West reported 97, 64 and 57 cases respectively.

As reported by News24, 335 of the 580 cases were detected in children between the ages of five and nine with 158 more cases detected in children aged one to four.

Although the data available did not allow the exact measure of positive tests in the country, it is no doubt that the cases have been rising.

With this, concerns are also heightening as we approach the peak of winter.

For parents with children in creche or primary school, panic is picking up as they are also at risk of contracting the mumps virus.

Mumps is also referred to as Infectious Parotitis because of the painful swelling of the parotid and salivary glands.

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Speaking to Drum about the outbreak, Dr Prudence Buthelezi says the virus is more severe in adolescents and the elderly.

“Mumps infection normally occurs in childhood most frequently at the age of 5-9 years. Symptoms and complications are more common in males and more severe in adolescents and elderly. It is common in Western Pacific Region where [there has been the] highest number of confirmed cases every year since 2004.”

Although it doesn’t last too long in one’s system, it is unbearably painful. 

For 21-year-old Faith Ndlovu, mumps was an illness she did not know about until her almost two-year-old niece had it and she later contracted it.

“My niece contracted it from a friend in our complex, she had pain and swelling below the ear area. She had them (mumps) for 3-4 days.”

“[One day], I woke up with pain below my ear and the next day I woke up swollen on the one side of my face. I had headaches and unexplainable fatigue.”

She adds that she usually has a high pain tolerance but “I was suffering. It was a really painful experience. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate it an 11.”

Her swelling on the neck had closed her airway and that resulted her having difficulty breathing. For days, she couldn't eat anything, even something as soft as mash.

She had soup and water for that time.

Faith Ndlovu has experienced the unbearable pain of contracting mumps recently.

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“I had to isolate myself because mumps are contagious. I was not able to speak audibly so I had to find ways to communicate with the people taking care of me,” she tells Drum.

Mumps being a non-notifiable medical condition, Dr Prudence says, “When you are infected with mumps virus, it will be in your saliva so when sneezing and coughing without closing your mouth properly, the tiny droplets will be in the air. Then the next person close to you [will breathe] in those tiny, infected droplet [and] be infected.”

Because it is an airborne virus, one can also get it from either touching a surface that has infected droplets then touching their face or through direct contact such as kissing, sharing water bottle.

“The risk of spreading the virus increases the longer and the closer the contact a person has with someone who has mumps,” the general medical practitioner adds.

The symptoms develop within 16 to 18 days after exposure and there is no cure for the mumps virus which is closely associated with measles, diphtheria and rubella.

When someone is infected, isolation is advised for about five days.

Drawing from her experience, Faith says, “It is very easy to transmit. It requires bed rest and for you to get in a lot of fluids. There isn't medication to treat mumps - just medication to make it bearable, it usually passes after a week or two. When you contract mumps, you should take good care of yourself.”

She adds that anti-inflammatory medication and paracetamol helped her recover.

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Dr Prudence confirms that there is no specific treatment for mumps but with painkillers or fever medication, lots of water and using cold or warm water over the swollen glands, one should recover within three to 10 days.

Although it is a preventable disease, the rise in mumps cases is no shock as immunisation rates began declining during the Covid-19 pandemic.

To take down the risk of contracting it, children must have gotten the first dose of a vaccine called MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) between the ages of 12-15 months and second dose between four and six years old before entering ‘big’ school.

Spotlight has reported that experts say that there isn’t going to be a dramatic resurgence of other vaccine-preventable diseases as seen with mumps, measles and diphtheria but low vaccine coverage still poses a health threat.

A pathologist at the Centre for Vaccines and Immunology at the NICD, Dr Kerrigan McCarthy told Spotlight that over 95% of persons in the country’s population need to be immune which means vaccine coverage rates must be high for outbreaks to be prevented.