IAP Position Paper on Burden of Mumps in India and Vaccination Strategies.

JUSTIFICATION: Mumps, despite being a widely prevalent disease in the country, is considered as an insignificant public health problem mainly because of poor documentation of clinical cases and lack of published studies. In the absence of adequate published data on disease burden, Government of India has recently decided to introduce measles-rubella (MR) vaccine in its National Immunization Program and neglected mumps component.

PROCESS: Following an IAP ACVIP meeting on December 6 and 7, 2014, a detailed review of burden of mumps in India along with vaccination strategies to control the disease was prepared. The draft was circulated amongst the members of the committee for review and approval. Revised final draft was later approved by IAP executive board in January 2015.

OBJECTIVES

To provide a review of community burden of mumps in India; and to discuss the vaccination strategies to impress upon policymakers to include mumps vaccination in National immunization program.

RECOMMENDATIONS: A total of 14 studies and two media reports on mumps outbreak were retrieved. The outbreaks were reported from all the regions of the country. Mumps meningoencephalitis was responsible for 2.3% to 14.6% of all investigated hospitalized acute encephalitis syndrome or viral encephalitis cases in different studies. Data from Infectious Disease Surveillance (ID Surv) portal of IAP and Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) of Government of India (GoI) were also reviewed. While a total of 1052 cases were reported by the IDSurv, IDSP had investigated 72 outbreaks with 1564 cases in 14 states during different time periods. Genotypes G (subtype G2) and C were found to be main genotypes of the mumps virus circulating in the country. Three studies studied serological status of young children and adolescents against mumps, and found susceptibility rates ranging from 32% to 80% in different age groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Mumps poses a significant disease burden in India. This calls for inclusion of mumps vaccine in the National immunization program.