Fact sheets
The Department of Health, Western Australia, does not produce fact sheets on this topic.
Public Health action
Notifiable disease data and reports
Additional sources of information
Exclusion
Cases: exclude for 9 days after onset of symptoms
Contacts: do not exclude.
Case definition
Only confirmed cases should be notified.
Confirmed case
A confirmed case requires either:
1. laboratory definitive evidence
OR
2. Laboratory suggestive evidence AND clinical evidence
OR
3. clinical evidence AND epidemiological evidence.
Laboratory definitive evidence
1. Isolation of mumps virus
OR
2. Detection of mumps virus by nucleic acid testing
OR
3. IgG seroconversion or a significant increase in antibody level or a fourfold or greater rise in titre to mumps virus EXCEPT when there has been recent mumps-containing immunisation.
Laboratory suggestive evidence
Detection of mumps-specific IgM antibody (in the absence of recent mumps vaccination).
Clinical evidence
A clinically compatible illness characterised by swelling of the parotid or other salivary glands lasting two days or more without other apparent cause.
Epidemiological evidence
An epidemiological link is established when there is:
1. Contact between two people involving a plausible mode of transmission at a time when:
a) one of them is likely to be infectious (6-7 days before onset of overt parotitis to nine days after);
AND
b) the other has an illness that starts within approximately 12 to 25 days after this contact;
AND
2. At least one case in the chain of epidemiologically linked cases (which may involve many cases) is laboratory confirmed.
