Symptoms
The disease initially begins with fever, loss of appetite, feeling sick, muscle aches, and headache and typically leads to painful inflammation of the salivary glands on one or both sides. The parotid glands may become so swollen that the ears protrude outward. Other possible symptoms and complications include inflammation of the testicles, epididymis or ovary, inflammation of the pancreas, heart muscle and central nervous system involvement with brain or meningitis and hearing loss. Infection during early pregnancy can lead to abortion. Subclinical infections that are asymptomatic are also common.
Causes
The cause of the disease is infection with mumps virus, a highly contagious, enveloped, single-stranded RNA virus of the paramyxovirus family that replicates in the upper respiratory tract. It has an affinity for glandular and nervous tissue and is transmitted as a droplet infection or by direct contact with contaminated saliva. Humans are the only known host. The incubation period is about two to three weeks and the duration of illness is about two weeks. Patients may be contagious just before and during the onset of symptoms.
Diagnosis
Diagnosis is made by medical treatment based on the clinical picture of the disease and laboratory methods. Enlargement of the parotid glands may also be caused by other infectious diseases, tumors, medications, and Sjögren’s syndrome.
Treatment
Bed rest is recommended. Because no causal treatment with antiviral drugs is yet available, therapy is symptomatic, including antipyretic drugs and analgesic drugs such as acetaminophen and NSAIDs. The use of anti-inflammatory glucocorticoids is controversial. The use of interferons is mentioned in the literature.
Prevention
A live vaccine with attenuated mumps virus is available for prevention (virus parotitis vivus). The MMR vaccine protects against measles, mumps, and rubella and is given to infants 12 months of age and older a total of two times see MMR Vaccination.
