The United States of America has an increasing case of the mumps outbreak in the past years where last year there has been around 5,000 cases. The health sector is stepping up to solve this with the vaccine for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). However, debates are still up whether the US will get three shots instead of two.
In a recent report by the Huffington Post, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is currently acting on this rise in numbers which continues up until this year. Through ACIP's reports, it was found out that these rise in numbers are observed in communities with high vaccination rates which are pretty alarming. ACIP also stresses that the usual two-shot vaccine might not be that effective any longer.
Usually, the two-shot MMR vaccine is given between the ages when the child is 12 to 15 months old and the second shot is given around 4 to 6 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Scientists believed that giving two shots of the MMR vaccine increases the effectivity of the vaccine which results to 97 percent for preventing measles and 88 percent for mumps.
Now, some scientists are already thinking of increasing the number of shots to answer the increasing cases of mumps in the US. However, Patsy Stinchfield, the Senior Director of Infection Prevention at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, shared that doctors are trying to focus on mumps first but there's no single antigen vaccine for mumps available and there's only the MMR vaccine. Increasing the dosage of the MMR vaccine to increase its effectivity against mumps would also entail increasing its dosage for measles and rubella as well which could lead to adverse effects.
The US government and health sector are currently evaluating the pros and cons of this move to increase the dosage of the MMR vaccine to solve the increasing case of mumps in the country. Stay tuned for more updates here in Science Times.
