UPDATED at 4:23 p.m. on March 12.
Temple will officially require incoming students to be vaccinated for the mumps, President Richard Englert announced Tuesday at the Board of Trustees meeting.
The university will require the mumps measles and rubella, chicken pox and the diphtheria tetanus and pertussis vaccines. It will also allow a “standard” waiver for religious, medical and philosophical reasons, Englert said.
The policy change follows a mumps outbreak that the university announced on Feb. 28. As of Tuesday, there are 23 total Temple-related mumps cases. Jim Garrow, the director of communications for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, told The Temple News there are 20 cases in Philadelphia and three in the suburbs.
Director of Employee and Student Health Services Mark Denys told The Temple News on Tuesday that the university has confirmed 11 mumps cases and 12 probable ones.
Mumps is a contagious viral disease that can be transmitted via the nose, mouth and throat. Symptoms include swelling of the face and jaw, fever and body pains.
That’s awesome.
Let that antivax quackery be peddled on Facebook, not at my school.
Some obvious relevant points here — try to followup and confirm (or refute) that:
– the infected patients weren’t vaccinated
– the vast majority of Temple students are vaccinated
– MMR vaccine is nearly always effective