Mumps controls to intensify in statewide hot zones

New York City health officials hope to vaccinate at least 3,000 people next week in a bid to contain the largest mumps outbreak in decades.

"We are prepared to vaccinate up to 1,500 people each day," said Dr. Jane R. Zucker, assistant commissioner for immunization at the New York City Department of Health. The campaign is slated for Wednesday and Thursday in Williamsburg and Borough Park.

Zucker said it takes at least 10 days to two weeks for the vaccine to become effective. She could not speculate how soon the effort will affect the mumps' communitywide transmission.

The Brooklyn outbreak, she said, continues to grow, spreading largely in Hasidic Jewish communities, and disproportionately affecting boys and men. The skew toward males was unconnected to the virus, Zucker said, but more to do with the Hasidic community itself, which tended to separate genders in schools and recreational activities.

In Orange County, the New York State Department of Health plans to vaccinate family members of more than 1,800 children who have already received an unprecedented third dose of the vaccine.

Claudia Hutton, spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health, said special institutional review boards at the department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were required to approve a vaccination effort in Orange County.

"We got approval for the third dose, which has already been given to 1,863 children in grades six through 12," Hutton said. "Next week they will start vaccinating family members." The city will not administer a third dose of the standard two-dose mumps vaccine, Zucker said.

The outbreak has shifted geographically since a boy, 11, brought the mumps to New York from Britain last summer. The child attended an Orthodox Jewish camp in Sullivan County, which led to an explosive outbreak in Rockland and Orange when children returned home.

Disease trackers say the largest number of cases - 44 percent - are now in Brooklyn, followed by Orange County, which has 24 percent of cases, or 364; Rockland, with 298, has 20 percent of total cases.