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Essay on History of The Mumps Virus

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The Mumps virus seems to have been around since ancient times. Research says that the virus has been documented or recorded by the Hippocrates in 5th century BCE (Mumps Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases). We give credit to Johnson and Goodpasture for helping determine how the virus is spread. This particular virus has been and still is known worldwide but became a reportable disease in the United States in 1968. The history behind the Mumps is not very detailed but today we are able to prevent this disease here in the US.
The structure of the Mumps is a single stranded RNA virus. Its genus is the Rubulavirus which is part of the Paramyxoviridae family . The Mumps virus is an acute virus that could become …show more content…

A few other complications may be, orichitis , oophoritis, and deafness.
In order to detect if a person has the mumps the first thing would be to look at the symptoms. Mainly the swollen jaws would be a good indication. After this confirming what we think is the next step so a sample must be collected. Depending on what exactly you are looking for and what type of test is to be done depends on what type of sample you must get. For a detection of the mumps antibody a blood sample is going to be the choice specimen. To get this sample a normal venipuncture procedure will be used. If you are testing for the virus in a culture there are several specimens that can be used. Examples include blood, urine, CSF, nasopharyngeal aspirate/washing and throat swabs (Measles and Mumps Tests). We use antibody testing most commonly to determine if a person has this virus. Once infected the body make IgM antibodies to the virus. Over time these antibodies disintegrate and IgG antibodies take their place forever, allowing the person to become immune to the mumps virus if ever in contact with it again. There is also another test that detects the genetic strain of the virus called the RT-PCR test (Measles and Mumps Tests). This is used to help determine a cause especially if the results do not match the doctors suspicions.
Lastly to be discussed is prevention of the mumps virus. As I s tated earlier in this paper the mumps is not very prevalent in the

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