June 2, 2006 -- Mumps Immunizations Updated to Two Doses

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said June 1 that "acceptable presumptive evidence of immunity" to mumps now calls for students in grades K-12, college students, and healthcare workers to have received two doses of a live mumps vaccine. The new requirement upgrades a previous recommendation issued in 1998 that called for just one dose of mumps-containing vaccine and follows an outbreak of mumps in the United States between January and May this year. The ACIP said it issued the new two-dose recommendation "after reviewing data from the current outbreak and previous evidence on mumps vaccine effectiveness and transmission." The ACIP noted that all persons who work in healthcare facilities and were born during or after 1957 should receive two doses of the vaccine, with a second dose given to persons who had earlier received a single dose. Birth before 1957 is considered "presumptive evidence of immunity," but it would be a good idea to require older workers to present either physician diagnosis of their earlier mumps or laboratory evidence of immunity, the ACIP said. The full text of the updated mumps recommendations is available as an "Early Release" at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr.