Two more cases of mumps have been diagnosed among students at separate public schools in Toronto it was reported Tuesday. With the case reported late last week at Forest Hill Collegiate there are now three students with mumps at three different schools. One of the new outbreaks is identified as being at King Edward Junior and Senior Public School at 112 Lippincott Street northwest of College and Spadina. City-wide, the number of cases stands at 28, including the outbreaks that originated in west-central Toronto bars a recent weeks. Protocol in the case of infectious diseases like mumps has health authorities trying to trace and isolate those who might be positive. But it isn’t easy. “People are developing mumps and they don’t know exactly who gave it to them,” Toronto Public Health’s Dr. Vinita Dubey told CBC Toronto on Tuesday. “Now, it seems there must be a broader circulation of the mumps virus throughout the city,” Dubey said.
VACCINATION WEAK BETWEEN 1970 AND 1991
Still, Toronto Public Health remains optimistic that there is unlikely to be a major outbreak because vaccination among students is above 90 per cent in most Toronto schools. “However, if there are multiple cases in a school…we actually have the ability to exclude students who are not up-to-date with their immunizations from school,” Dubey said. TPH is asking the public to check their immunization records and said people born between 1970 and 1991 may have only received one dose as a child — rather than the now-standard two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccines — and could be more vulnerable.
