Childhood immunizations in the United States
Mumps is a contagious disease caused by the virus by the same name. Since most people in the United States have been vaccinated, mumps is now a rare disease in this country. Currently there are no specific treatments for mumps.
Mumps is spread person to person by droplets of saliva or mucus from the mouth, nose or throat of an infected person. This is done through coughing, sneezing, talking, and coming into contact with contaminate items. Transmission likely occurs before the salivary glands swell an up to 5 days after the swelling begins.
Murine gammaherpesvirus 68
Murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV-68) aka murid herpesvirus 68 is an isolate of Murid herpesvirus 4 which is a virus in the genus Rhadinovirus. It is a member of the subfamily Gammaherpesvirinae in the family of Herpesviridae. MHV-68 serves as a model for study of human gammaherpesviruses which cause significant human disease including B-cell lymphoma and Kaposi's sarcoma. The WUMS strain of MHV-68 was fully sequenced and annotated in 1997, and the necessity of most of its genes in viral replication was characterized by random transposon mutagenesis study