New York, NY –
57 children in Borough Park, Brooklyn have the mumps, a childhood disease that’s widely been eliminated. Three-fourths of those children have been vaccinated, but the vaccine is considered 90 percent effective. Mumps is a relatively mild illness, but in rare cases, it can cause deafness. This outbreak has been linked to one child who went to Great Britain where vaccination rates are lower, and then to summer camp. The Borough Park cluster is also related to an outbreak in another ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. There have been about 30 cases reported in Lakewood, NJ, over the last two weeks.
Residents are being urged to report all possible cases of mumps to the Bureau of Immunization at (212) 676-2288 or x2284 or (212) 764-7667 after hours.
Fred Mogul has been covering healthcare and medicine for WNYC since 2002. His beat takes him to hospitals, community clinics, doctors offices, health agencies, public schools and research labs across the metropolitan area. His work has appeared on NPR and in the New York Times, Time magazine and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.
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