COLUMBUS, Ohio – Officials in the Hilliard City Schools confirm they are investigating three possible cases of mumps linked to an outbreak that has sickened more than 240 people in three central Ohio counties.
In an email sent to parents Monday, the district’s Student Support Services director, Vicky Clark, says one possible case has been reported at J.W. Reason and Brown elementary schools and one at Hilliard Bradley High School.
Columbus Public Health says 242 cases of mumps had been confirmed in Franklin, Delaware and Madison counties Monday after, 201 of which were connected to Ohio State.
Mumps is a viral illness that affects the salivary glands and is spread by droplets of saliva or mucous from the mouth, nose or throat of an infected person when the person coughs, sneezes or talks. Things like cups, straws, soft drink cans or utensils used by infected people can also be contaminated.
Symptoms include fever, body aches, headaches and swelling of the salivary glands but health officials say about a third of people who contract the mumps virus do not develop symptoms.
Clark says any child who has not received two doses of the mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccine by the time a patient in their school shows symptoms may have to stay at home for the 25-day gestation period of the disease.
Olentangy Local School District officials have also confirmed possible mumps cases in some of the schools in that district.