Mumps outbreak hits Fordham University

Mumps has broken out on the campus of Fordham University, according to university officials.

Reports released Thursday morning stated that there are 13 suspected cases on both the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx and the Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan.

There have been 10 cases since January, with nine of them reported in the last three days. From there it only took a matter of hours for the number to grow to the current 13, although health officials believe that, with these cases now isolated, those numbers will stop growing..

"All the students with suspected mumps infections have either returned home or have been isolated from other residents during the infectious phase of the illness," Fordham officials said in a public statement. "Typically mumps patients are contagious for two days prior to the outbreak of symptoms and five days after."

How the illness made its way onto the school's campus is unclear.

"The thing is, just to get into Fordham you need to be vaccinated for mumps. So nobody knows if those kids got a bad vaccine or what," freshman Johnathan Agostino said.

Mumps can cause fever, headaches, muscle aches, swollen glands, fatigue and loss of appetite. It usually takes 16 to 18 days after infection for symptoms to appear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vaccine for the highly contagious disease also does not guarantee 100 percent immunity.

"All of the students who were tentatively diagnosed with mumps had been vaccinated," the university said in a statement. "Vaccinations do not offer 100 percent protection."

Lab tests have not officially confirmed mumps as the culprit, but the university thinks "that is the most likely diagnosis."

"Mumps in college-age men and women usually runs its course without any lasting effects," the university said. "Nonetheless, the university is trying to see what connection there might be among the affected students while stepping up the frequency and intensity of cleanings in communal bathrooms."