COLUMBUS, Ohio – State health officials say graduation celebrations and summer travel can be opportunities for diseases like mumps and measles to spread if people don’t take preventative measures.
In the midst of outbreaks of those diseases, they are urging Ohioans to make sure their vaccinations are up to date because graduations, graduation parties and vacations lead folks to travel across the state and the U.S.
“We need to keep in mind that travel can present opportunities for exposure to vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles,” said Dr. Mary DiOrio, the Ohio Department of Health’s State Epidemiologist.
At least 396 cases of mumps have been confirmed in an outbreak of the contagious viral illness concentrated mostly in Franklin, Delaware and Madison. Columbus Public Health says 219 of those are linked to the Ohio State University campus.
The Ohio outbreak accounts for approximately three-fourths off the mumps cases nationwide.
The total has grown to 164 cases for a separate measles outbreak that began among Amish who had traveled to the Philippines, which has had an epidemic of the respiratory illness. One-hundred of those cases are in Knox County.
It is the largest measles outbreak since the 1990’s.
The Health Department says it has distributed more than 13,000 doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine to fight the measles outbreak since it was made aware of in April and that local health departments have administered more than 8,000 of those doses so far.