Mumps
Mumps is a viral disease caused by the mumps virus. Initial signs and symptoms often include fever, muscle pain, headache, poor appetite, and feeling tired. This is then usually followed by painful swelling of one or both parotid salivary glands. Symptoms typically occur 16 to 18 days after exposure and resolve after seven to ten days. Symptoms in adults are often more severe than in children. About a third of people have mild or no symptoms. Complications may include meningitis (15 percent), pancreatitis (four percent), inflammation of the heart, permanent deafness, and testicular inflammation which uncommonly results in infertility. Women may develop ovarian swelling but this does not increase the risk of infertility.
Mumps is highly contagious and spreads rapidly among people living in close quarters. The virus is transmitted by respiratory droplets or direct contact with an infected person. Only humans get and spread the disease. People are infectious to each other from about seven days before the start of symptoms to about eight days after. Once an infection has run its course, a person is typically immune for life. Reinfection is possible but the ensuing infection tends to be mild. Diagnosis is usually suspected due to parotid swelling and can be confirmed by isolating the virus on a swab of the parotid duct. Testing for IgM antibodies in the blood is simple and may be useful; however, it can be falsely negative in those who have been immunized.
Mumps is preventable by two doses of the mumps vaccine. Most of the developed world includes it in their immunization programs, often in combination with measles, rubella, and varicella vaccine. Countries that have low immunization rates may see an increase in cases among older age groups and thus worse outcomes. There is no specific treatment. Efforts involve controlling symptoms with pain medication such as paracetamol (acetaminophen). Intravenous immunoglobulin may be useful in certain complications. Hospitalization may be required if meningitis or pancreatitis develops. About one per ten thousand people who are infected die.
Without immunization about 0.1 percent to one percent of the population are affected per year. Widespread vaccination has resulted in a more than 90 percent decline in rates of disease. Mumps is more common in the developing world where vaccination is less common. Outbreaks, however, may still occur in a vaccinated population. Before the introduction of a vaccine, mumps was a common childhood disease worldwide. Larger outbreaks of disease would typically occur every two to five years. Children between the ages of five and nine were most commonly affected. Among immunized populations often those in their early 20s are affected. Around the equator it often occurs all year round while in the more northerly and southerly regions of the world it is more common in the winter and spring. Painful swelling of the parotid glands and testicles was described by Hippocrates in the 5th century BCE.
Foreign animal disease
Glanders Glanders (Farcy) is a highly infectious zoonotic disease of equines caused by the bacterium "Burkholderia mallei". It can also be contracted by goats, dogs, and cats. Humans are also susceptible, with a 95% fatality rate in untreated septicemia cases, and thus the organism is considered a potential bioterrorism agent. Glanders is one of the oldest diseases known and was once worldwide, but has been eradicated from most countries by mid-1900s. Now uncommon, outbreaks are reported from the Middle East, Pakistan, India, Mongolia, China, Brazil, and Africa. Glanders is transmitted mainly by contact with infected horses, mules, and donkeys through their respiratory secretions and exudates from skin lesion, or orally by shared water troughs, or by fomites. Some animals die quickly within a few weeks, while others become chronically infected and continue to spread the disease for years before succumbing. The clinical signs in equids is categorized into nasal, pulmonary, and cutaneous forms. Nasal glanders begins clinically with a high fever, then presents with a highly infectious, viscous, yellowish-green, mucopurulent discharge with possible crusting around the nares. Pulmonary glanders usually requires several months to develop, first manifesting through fever, dyspnea, paroxysmal coughing or persistent dry cough accompanied by labored breathing, possible diarrhea and polyuria, with all leading to a progressive loss of condition. Cutaneous glanders develops insidiously over an extended period, beginning with coughing and dyspnea usually associated with periods of exacerbation leading to progressive debilitation, and may also include fever, and enlargement of the lymph nodes. Clinical cases are often a combination of forms, and may be acute or subacute, chronic, or latent, although horses usually develop chronic glanders which is eventually fatal in most animals. There is no vaccine, and treatment of horses with antibiotics may be effective but is only used in endemic areas because treatment does not reliably produce a bacteriologic cure and may lead to subclinical carrier animals which can then infect humans and other animals. Diagnosis of glanders in animals is performed at an appropriate biosafety and containment level laboratory by isolating the organism from blood, sputum, urine, or skin lesions, or by serological testing. Prevention of glanders depends on early detection and the humane euthanasia of positive animals along with strict animal movement controls, effective premise quarantines, the burning and burying of affected animal carcasses, the burning and burying of disposable materials on positive premises, and the thorough cleaning and disinfection of outbreak areas, transportation vehicles, and equipment. "Glanders in horses is a re-emerging zoonotic disease. Successful eradication and control of glanders can only be achieved by combining highly sensitive and specific testing methods with effective culling strategies. Close cooperation between authorities and owners, as well as the strict compliance to biosafety approaches in animal holdings are essential."