Mumps abating in Grant County, TB case heads to Florida

EPHRATA — The mumps outbreak in Grant County appears to be abating, with only four cases identified in the last month, according to Grant County Health Officer Alexander Brzezny.

“The risk to the public is diminishing,” Brzezny said at a meeting of the Grant County Board of Health recently.

All but one of the 68 confirmed and suspect cases of mumps reported in Grant County have been confined to Columbia Basin Job Corps, where students live, work and study in very close quarters, sharing drink bottles, utensils and cigarettes, Brzezny said.

Washington state has been hit by a mumps outbreak since early January, and dozens of Job Corps students have found themselves in isolation for nearly a week to allow the worst symptoms of the disease to pass.

Brzezny added that the work done to immunize so many young people and employees at Job Corps with the MMR vaccine — mumps, measles and rubella — will have the added effect of preventing an outbreak of measles in Grant County.

The health officer warned that 50 cases of measles have been reported among Somali immigrants in Minneapolis. Up until a few years ago, that immigrant community had a vaccination rate of nearly 99 percent but studies now show that they vaccinate slightly fewer than two-thirds of their children.

“With a lack of the immunization, there will be an increase in the diseases,” Brzezny said. “Unlike mumps, measles kills people.”

Brzezny also updated the board on the one case of suspected tuberculosis, giving them a dose of both bad news and good news.

The bad news, Brzezny said, is that the case was resistant to at least two antibiotics, and that all of the health workers who came in contact with the infected patient will continue to be tested and monitored for symptoms of TB.

However, the good news was that the patient relocated to Florida, where they were continuing treatment. And so the TB case was only going to cost the county around $17,000, as opposed to the many tens of thousands treatment of a case multiple-drug resistant TB might have cost.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.