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After reports that a mumps outbreak hit Ocean County, the hardest among affected areas in New Jersey, Lakewood's Beth Medrash Govoha told The Jewish State that the yeshiva has experienced "a handful of mild cases among students" over the last few months.

The largest mumps outbreak in the United States took place in New York and New Jersey between June 28, 2009 and Jan. 29, 2010, with 97 percent of 1,521 outbreak-related cases coming from the Orthodox Jewish community and 159 cases occurring in New Jersey, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed in a Feb. 12 report.

CDC officials told The Jewish State Feb. 12 that outbreak-related mumps cases in Ocean and Hudson counties stemmed from yeshivas in those areas, and the Ocean County Health Department said Lakewood has seen 159 mumps cases since Sept. 11, 2009. At Beth Medrash Govoha (BMG), one of the world's largest yeshivas, the handful of students who contracted mumps had been immunized against the virus, BMG wrote in an email statement to The Jewish State.

"We have notified our student body that, if they are diagnosed with Mumps, they should be staying home until five days have passed from the onset of confirmed Mumps symptoms, and we have further asked that no student come to the Yeshiva if he has suspected symptoms until he has seen a doctor to determine whether he in fact does have the Mumps," BMG said Feb. 18.

Mumps typically starts with a few days of fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, and loss of appetite, and is followed by swelling of salivary glands. Among the 1,521 outbreak-related mumps cases in New York and New Jersey, 88 percent of the patients had received at least one dose of mumps-containing vaccine, and 75 percent had received two doses, according to CDC.

The mumps vaccine is effective in one dose for a range of 73 to 91 percent of those who receive it, and in two does for 79-95 percent; by comparison, the measles vaccine is close to 100 percent effective in two doses and the rubella vaccine is 100 percent effective in just one dose, Dr. Greg Wallace, a CDC research medical officer, explained in an interview Feb. 12.

BMG said students are required to be up to date on their immunizations, and that the yeshiva works together with the county health department to try to prevent and mitigate outbreaks of any viruses.

"As we did with the H1N1 flu, we will continue to stay on top of this situation to do our part to protect public health," BMG said. "We have accommodations set up for students showing infectious disease symptoms (Mumps, H1N1, etc.) who need to leave a dormitory until the end of an exclusion period."