PLAINFIELD, IL — A case of Mumps was confirmed at Plainfield South High School on Tuesday, prompting the school to send email alerts to students' parents and guardians about proper preventative measures. Mumps is a viral infection often spread via saliva or mucus and can be transmitted by sharing eating utensils, sneezing and coughing, kissing, and touching surfaces an infected person has touched without washing hands.

According to the alert sent to Plainfield South families, symptoms of Mumps usually appear between 12 and 25 days after infection and most commonly include the following: Fever

Headache

Muscle aches

Tiredness

Loss of appetite

Swollen and tender salivary glands under the ears on one or both sides (parotitis) School officials at Plainfield South declined to comment on the issue, but District 202 Director of Community Relations Tom Hernandez said the alerts sent to students' families include instructions about what steps to take to halt the spread of infection. Different versions of the alert were sent to parents depending on their child's proximity to the infected student and their child's relative risk of infection.



"There were variations of the letter because some students are directly impacted," Hernandez said. "Because they're in class with the [infected] student... then there are students that are immuno-compromised or... they have religious exemptions [to vaccination]." Since the late 1960s, widespread vaccination has drastically reduced the number of Mumps outbreaks in the U.S. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that prior to 1967, more than 186,000 cases of mumps were reported annually in the country, while that number dropped to only about 314 cases in 2005. Since 2006, the incidence of Mumps has once again been on the rise, with about 3,500 cases reported nationally in 2019.

While concerning, Mumps is rarely fatal and statistically more dangerous to adults than it is to children. The letters sent to all Plainfield South parents and guardians urge families to practice basic preventative measures such as washing hands, covering the mouth when sneezing, and keeping students home if they feel ill. Extra cleaning of the school has also been done to sanitize surfaces students will come into contact with.

"Not a big deal except that it comes right in the middle of everything else," Hernandez said.