There has been an outbreak of mumps at dds university.

First time I have seen the impact of the disease and it really wipes the students out.

Some of them are so weak they find it difficult to move. Some of them had had to go home and miss the rest of term.

I hear that Nottingham Trent has had an outbreak. DG

I had mumps when I was younger, despite innoculations. It was awful, awful, awful even then. Both boys have been vaccinated - and join the shrinking number of people who are vaccinated who protect those who are not and put everyone at risk of infection.

There's a sizeable outbreak of mumps and measles at the moment.
The mind boggles that we can still be in this position, several years after Wakefield has been shown to be such a charlatan.
Unfortunately the mumps part of the vaccine is not as effective as the other two, so increasingly people who have been vaccinated will be affected by the rise in mumps in the population due to the unvaccinated.
Most of the young people we're seeing with it are not too unwell but of course are still at risk of infertility as a direct consequence.
The smaller people we're seeing with measles (I've only seen one but I know colleagues who have seen several) can be very sick indeed. It is only a matter of time before we have a measles death.

My daughter recently had German Measles despite being vaccinated. I haven't heard whether there is an outbreak of this anywhere.

When my son was a baby he had all the vaccinations, but my husband's family have an inherited disease affecting the immune system so he was tested. They discovered he hadn't mounted an immune response to any of the baby vaccinations (but was clear of the inherited disease as they discovered it was passed down on the x chromosome). He had to have them all again. But it makes me wonder how many others had the vaccinations but aren't actually immune.

No vaccine is 100% effective. This is part of the reason we rely on herd immunity to protect those that either can’t have the vaccine or are one of those that it doesn’t work for.

It’s not just vaccines either. I’ve had chicken pox three times. I don’t retain my immunity to it. Thankfully the second and third time weren’t quite as bad as the first. The second time I was at uni and in halls with several people who got chicken pox. I was very surprised to get it and thought it must be something else, but told by the GP it was definitely CP and it’s not unheard of.

I had chicken pox twice when I was in primary school.

The second time was much worse.

It impacted all my back teeth and I had to have them all taken out.

While living in America I was surprised to discover that they had a chicken pox vaccine and we don't. DG

Approximately 20-30% of those vaccinated will lose their immunity to mumps. Most retain most of their immunity to most vaccinations but none are 100%.
People like your son - or children who are undergoing treatment for leukaemia etc - are the reason that we depend on herd immunity.

Sorry X posted with Tinkers.

Many parents are getting this privately now.
It's not in the NHS vaccine programme because
1) the costs are not thought to be worthwhile as the risks of chicken pox (though they can be individually very significant and in some cases devastating - and fatal) are relatively low on a population basis
And
2) the resistance of parents to new vaccines bring added to the programme means that vaccines against eg meningitis are thought to be less contentious.
But the main reason is the cost Vs benefit argument.
Interestingly most medical parents I know with young children have had the c pox vaccine privately - partly at least to minimise their own time off work...

So the educational impact of students having to take time off school is not considered at all?

DG

I think there are also a few concerns about the vaccine not last very longing and delaying the risk of the disease to adulthood when unfortunately the morbidity and mortality rates are higher. DS had CPox aged 2 at a hospital nursery - loads of kids got it, the nursery carried on regardless with all the kids there (unless they were systemically unwell) - the only real problem was a parent who was admitted to hospital with the disease. Ideally of course you get rid of the virus completely and then the at risk adults will be safer