Mumps among college students due to waning immunity

[ucbalumnus]

https://www.science.org/content/article/why-so-many-college-students-are-coming-down-mumps

@Roni Dengler in Science

Based on these data, they estimated that immunity to mumps lasts about 16 to 50 years, or about 27 years on average. That means as much as 25% of a vaccinated population can lose immunity within 8 years, and half can lose it within 19 years, researchers report today in Science Translational Medicine.

However, vaccine recommendations and college vaccination requirements do not appear to have taken waning mumps immunity into account yet.

[DadTwoGirls]

When measles started to make a comeback, I wondered if mumps would follow soon after. Then I saw that there was an outbreak of mumps at a university in California. Apparently there was also one at Harvard a few years ago.

This is not good. I know this can be serious at least for adult men (I am not sure regarding anyone else, but avoiding it seems like a good idea for everyone).

I wonder how many of the students getting mumps now were vaccinated as a child, versus were never vaccinated.

Certainly current recommendations do not appear to take waning immunity into account.

[kelsmom]

I don’t think waning immunity was as much of a concern before herd immunity was negatively impacted. This is relatively recent. However, in the current environment, I don’t know if vaccine guidance will be updated accordingly.