An outbreak of the mumps has sickened 68 people at Pennsylvania State University in College Station, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Most of those infected have been undergraduate students. The first case related to the outbreak was diagnosed Jan. 29. Shelley Haffner, infectious disease nurse manager at Penn State's student health center said there have been mumps cases identified at another Penn State campus, but the illnesses were traced back to the main campus in College Station. She told the Inquirer she hopes the end of the school year will interrupt the transmission cycle of the virus.
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The mumps are best known for painful, swollen salivary glands that cause puffy cheeks. It is a highly communicable disease transmitted by respiratory droplets via person-to-person contact and is typically accompanied by initial symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness and loss of appetite.
Renascent outbreaks of the mumps have been cropping up across the nation in recent months. One such outbreak has sickened more than 700 people in Washington state.
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