About a dozen cases a year in this area is par for the course. But 60?

CNN reports:

60 reported cases of mumps at University of Illinois since April

Sixty cases of mumps have been diagnosed in Champaign County, Illinois, since April, according to a local health official, who told CNN on Friday all the cases are linked to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.

There are 13 additional cases, that may or may not be linked, elsewhere in the state.

Mumps is a vaccine-preventable virus that’s contagious and spreads via droplets of saliva through coughing, sharing eating utensils or touching surfaces without washing hands after a sick person has done so.

The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District usually has 10 to 12 cases of mumps a year, according to Dr. Awais Vaid, an epidemiologist there. He said he worries the number of people infected could increase when students return to campus for the fall semester in two weeks.

“We were at 25 cases when the semester ended in the middle of May. We thought the outbreak would be over as we have seen in other outbreaks, that when students leave the outbreak is over,” Vaid said, noting that many students, including athletes, stayed on campus.

The key, he said, is for vaccination to be verified and for sick patients to isolate themselves.

The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District is working closely with the university and Illinois Department of Health to prevent the outbreak from spreading.