215 Woodmere students monitored after exposure to mumps

About 215 students in a Nassau County school are being monitored for signs of mumps following a recent exposure to the viral illness, health officials say.

Infectious-disease experts at the Nassau County Department of Health say all of the students at an elementary school in Woodmere have been sufficiently vaccinated and to date have shown no signs of the illness that inflames the salivary glands.

But authorities are being especially cautious. "We asked that active surveillance be conducted to look for symptoms," in both children and adult staff members, said Mary Ellen Laurain, Health Department spokeswoman, who would not reveal the school's name.

The carrier is said to be an adult from New York City, but neither Nassau nor New York City health department officials would offer additional details.

Largely a forgotten disease from a bygone era, mumps has surfaced as a major epidemiological focus in New York because of an outbreak that has gripped Rockland County since last summer, the largest in New York in decades. A single case has spawned 1,521 others, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spreading upstate, into Brooklyn, Canada and Israel.

Virtually all of the infections - 97 percent - have occurred among Hasidic Jews. The 11-year-old boy from Rockland County who ignited it caught mumps while visiting Britain, where outbreaks have been common since 2000. Upon returning home, he attended an Orthodox Jewish summer camp and touched off a wave of infections.

Cases have been more common in boys and men, health officials have found, but they think, at least among youngsters, that may be because Hasidic boys attend separate schools from girls and spend more time in classes. Most of those infected have had at least one dose of the two required doses of mumps vaccine.

"I don't think the [Hasidic] community is any more or any less immunized than any of the rest of the population in the United States," said Patricia Finn, a Rockland County lawyer who represents people seeking religious exemptions from state vaccine requirements.

At the Davis Renov Stahler High School for Boys in Woodmere - which is not part of Nassau's investigation - Rabbi Yisoel Kaminetsky, the principal, said almost all of the 325 boys there have been vaccinated.

"Certainly the Jewish faith believes that people should protect themselves from illness 100 percent," he said.

Authorities treat mumps outbreaks seriously because mumps can lead to serious complications in the unvaccinated.

Since the outbreak's onset, health officials have identified numerous complications: 55 cases of orchitis - testicle inflammation; five cases of pancreatitis; two cases of meningitis; one case of transient deafness; and one case of Bell's palsy - paralysis of a key facial nerve.

ANATOMY OF AN OUTBREAK

* State and federal epidemiologists have identified several trends in the major mumps outbreak that has hit parts of New York.

* Most cases have occurred among people who have been vaccinated; but the vaccine is only 79 to 95 percent effective

* Outbreak is the largest, 1,521, in United States since a multistate Midwest outbreak in 2006, which affected 6,600

* A majority of cases have affected males

* Average age, 15

* Range of ages affected - 3-months-old to 90 years

* 88 percent of those affected have received at least one dose of the two-dose vaccine. State is offering a third to control outbreak

* Mumps is caused by a virus

* Can lead to infertility, viral meningitis, deafness

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention