Stewart Detention Center Watches For New Cases Of Mumps
The Georgia Department of Public Health says the outbreak is most likely the result of transfers from another facility.
(Kate Brumback/Associated Press file
Health officials are monitoring signs for mumps cases at Stewart Detention Center in Southern Georgia.
The all-male ICE facility is watching for new cases until mid-March, the end of the incubation period. There are no current cases, but there was an outbreak beginning in late December. Four cases were confirmed and seven probable — all cases were detainees, according the to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
There are several mumps outbreaks in detention centers across the country. The Georgia Department of Public Health says the one at Stewart is most likely the result of transfers from another facility.
About 300 vaccines were given to detainees and about 100 to employees at Stewart. The MMR vaccine protects against mumps, measles and rubella.
An ICE spokesman said detainees are medically screened when they first arrive at a detention center. “Each detainee receives a medical examination upon arrival at the facility to check for potential signs of illness, however ICE has no way of knowing what viruses a person may have been exposed to prior to entering the facility.”
The spokesman also said detainees with mumps are being isolated. The disease causes puffy cheeks and a swollen jaw; it’s spread in crowded spaces.
According to the Center for Disease Control, mumps “typically starts with a few days of fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, and loss of appetite. Then most people will have swelling of their salivary glands.”
If untreated, complications include inflammation of reproductive organs and the brain as well as deafness.
The CDC says that there are only a few hundred cases of mumps reported most years since 1989, when the two-MMR dose vaccination program was introduced in the U.S.
However, since 2006, there have been several increases in cases about every five years.
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