Epidemiology of mumps in the prevaccine
era
In countries where there is no vaccination against
mumps, its incidence remains high, with epidemic
peaks every 2–5 years and those aged 5–9 years consistently
being the most affected. Historical records
as far back as the eighteenth century document that
mumps epidemics occurred worldwide, and were
more frequent in crowded environments, including
prisons, orphanages, boarding schools, ships, and
military barracks (23). In the pre-vaccine era, mumps
was a common infectious disease with a high annual
incidence, usually >100 per 100 000 population
based on routine passive surveillance (Table 2).
One prospective community-based study in the USA
found the annual incidence of mumps to be almost
2000 cases per 100 000 population – about 10 times
greater than the number of passively reported cases
(24). Incidences greater than 6000 cases per 100 000
have been reported in military populations (25).
There are few data to assess the burden of mumps
infection in developing countries. In Oman, where
mumps vaccine was not used until 1997, the annual
incidence of mumps over the period 1990–96 was
269–783 per 100 000 population (A.J. Mohammed,
personal communication, 1997). In Israel, passive
surveillance (with an unknown reporting fraction,