2 mumps cases confirmed in Nassau, say health officials

Two cases of mumps have been confirmed in Nassau County, and though they're unrelated to outbreaks elsewhere in New York, they add to the dramatic uptick in cases in recent months.

There hasn't been a case of mumps in Nassau since August but county health officials say the new infections have changed the county's tally.

"They're what we call sporadic," said Nassau health department spokeswoman Mary Ellen Laurain, which means the cases are neither related to each other nor to the flare-up of more than 1,100 in Orange and Rockland counties and the 1,516 in Brooklyn that have occurred over the past several months.

Virtually all of those cases involved orthodox Jews who have traveled back and forth between Orange, Rockland and Brooklyn. Even though health officials say the mumps is on the decline in outbreak areas, the end is not yet in sight.

New York now has the distinction of having the largest number of mumps cases nationwide since a multistate outbreak swept through the Midwest four years ago. A mumps vaccine has been available since 1967.

While the vast majority of mumps infections throughout New York have occurred in school-age children, mostly males, the two cases identified in Nassau involved adults, one male, the other female. No other information was released.

Laurain did reveal one of the two people infected with the once-forgotten virus contracted it in Israel during a recent trip.

Israel, like other nations that once had stellar vaccination records and a low to zero incidence of mumps, has seen a substantial increase in the infections during the past decade. Officials at the World Health Organization attribute that rise to parents refusing to have their children vaccinated.

Many fear a link between vaccines and autism, experts say, a belief some scientists now say has taken on the proportions of an urban legend. There is no scientific evidence linking vaccines to the neurodevelopmental condition.