Mumps vaccines for University students?

[Zephyrine]

I got a strange email today from health services at my university.
Paraphrased, its something like: "catch mumps and you have to spend nine days in isolation, its also called very contagious and likely to cause serious complications in young adults. its 4 out of 5 aren't fully protected, get the vax here... and this time"
How much of this is true?
What is mumps anyways?

and why the heck are they trying to vaccinate university students?
I already argue with nurses about meningitis, gardasil and flu shots every time I end up in the clinic.

[anewmama]

[QUOTE=Zephyrine;13078953
and why the heck are they trying to vaccinate university students?[/QUOTE]


I think because they live in close quarters, tend to not nourish themselves well and are often very stressed. Diseases are more easily spread with the number of people they come in contact with on a daily basis.

[loveyourohana]

I have never recieved anything at all like that when I was in college... I graduated in 2002. Granted it was a while ago... but not that long ago.

I think they are feeding you bull crap. I hope more kids are alarmed by this than just you!

[just_lily]

Are you in Nova Scotia? Apparently they are having some kind of an "outbreak". Not sure how many they consider to be an "outbreak" anymore though.

It sounds like it is a voluntary program... I would just ignore the email.

[Scattershoot]

and why the heck are they trying to vaccinate university students?

Money, money, money. If you have a ton of people together in one place that you can sell a lot of product too, wouldn't any good marketing person try and take advantage of that. They've already cornered the nursing home, military, and school (K - 12) markets. Why not go for the college students?

I remember the good old days of college when you went to the quack shack and all they tried to do was load you up on antibiotics for everything.

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by Scattershoot

Money, money, money. If you have a ton of people together in one place that you can sell a lot of product too, wouldn't any good marketing person try and take advantage of that. They've already cornered the nursing home, military, and school (K - 12) markets. Why not go for the college students?

I remember the good old days of college when you went to the quack shack and all they tried to do was load you up on antibiotics for everything.

what she said!

[anewmama]

Originally Posted by Marnica

what she said!

Hmm, well that's a gross generalization... what she said.

[Zephyrine]

Originally Posted by just_lily

Are you in Nova Scotia? Apparently they are having some kind of an "outbreak". Not sure how many they consider to be an "outbreak" anymore though.

It sounds like it is a voluntary program... I would just ignore the email.

Nope, Northern Ontario.
I was already going to ignore it, I just found it odd. I mean we have gardasil ads all over the school, same with flu shot. But mumps?

[Sileree]

Pretty much the mumps vaccine is a dud.

[SwanMom]

The main thing that crossed my mind here was that pregnant women acquiring mumps often causes birth defects, so maybe they're trying to protect unborn babies?

[mamatowill]

I would think it comes from the mumps outbreak of a year or so ago which started in NS but spread across the country as the students went home for Christmas.

[the_lissa]

I was in university recently and there was never any mention of vaccinations.

[Jayray]

I had to have an MMR before I went to college (1998--and I went to a VERY small school) because I had only had one dose in my life.

In grad school (2002), I had to have a dose of tetanus or they were going to KICK ME OUT even though my last one was in 1998, because I hadn't had three doses in my lifetime.

Dumb.

[the_lissa]

Where do you live?

[Jayray]

If you're talking to me, I'm in the US--I went to college in VA and grad school in NC. The VA school was private, the NC school was public.

[the_lissa]

Yep, I was just wondering because Canadian universities do not ask for vax records or require vax.

[anewmama]

American universities do, and of course, there is no mention of exemptions where they state the requirements. I know Hep B is required for the university I work at.

[clarinetb]

I got this message too

I just moved from Canada to IL and finished up my PhD in Canada. I'll post the text for anyone's interest!

Vaccination clinics at Western to prevent mumps



In the past few years, several mumps outbreaks have occurred among students at universities and colleges in Canada. To prevent mumps outbreaks from occurring at universities and colleges in Ontario, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is offering measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to post-secondary students who have had one or no doses of this vaccine. In Ontario, most students in universities and colleges have only received one dose of MMR vaccine. To make it easy for students to get the MMR vaccine, the Middlesex-London Health Unit will be offering two free MMR vaccination clinics at The University of Western Ontario:



Location: University Community Centre (UCC) by the Subway

Dates and Times:



Thursday, January 29, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Friday, January 30, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Mumps is a virus that can cause fever, headaches, muscle aches and fatigue, followed by swelling and pain in one or more salivary glands (usually at the sides of the cheeks, near the angle of the jaw). Most people recover from their illness but the infection can result in complications that include infections of the brain, the lining of the brain (meningitis), the ovaries, breasts or pancreas. Deafness can be a rare complication. One in three men infected with mumps, develops an infection in their testicles, and although very rare, these infections can result in infertility.



For additional information, please see the Middlesex-London Health Unit website at http://www.healthunit.com or call 519-663-5317, ext. 2330.

Canadian universities don't ask for vaccination records. Most students will have had MMR as a child. They did another just measles round of vaccinating at the elementary school level because they weren't seeing enough of a pecentage resistance across the population to control it without outbreaks.