There have been 72 cases of mumps in Illinois this year, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

“Normally we only see 10 to 13 a year,” said IDPH Spokeswoman Melanie Arnold.

The IDHP is working with local health departments, school districts and hospitals to get the virus back under control, she said.

“We notified hospitals to be aware of the increase of mumps and for them to consider some of the symptoms in diagnosing patients,” Arnold said.

The virus is not fatal, she said. People ages one to 53 have been primarily affected by the outbreak and there have been no fatalities.

More than 27 counties have reported cases of the mumps in Illinois, but DeKalb is not one of them.

Beverly Espe, acting director of NIU Health Services, said they have seen a few people with questionable symptoms, but no one with the classic symptoms yet.

“The mumps starts with a fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness and fatigue,” Espe said. “Then the salivary glands begin to swell.”

People with mumps are contagious for about 11 to 13 days starting just before the symptoms show, Espe said. The mumps spreads through respiratory secretions like saliva, coughing, sneezing or really close contact with somebody who is infected.

NIU Health Services received a warning weeks ago from the IDPH and has used its guidelines to prepare in case the mumps does come to DeKalb, she said.

“We were already warned because of our proximity to Iowa and we’ve been getting updates and reports from the IDPH for the last few weeks,” Espe said.

According to the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Web site, there are more than 600 reports of probable and confirmed cases of the mumps this year.

“The problem in Iowa is that they are seeing these cases in people who have been already immunized,” Espe said.

This could lead to new immunization procedures for everybody in the future, she said.

It is an Illinois state law to get a mumps, measles and rubella immunization, along with a measles booster a few years after immunization, Espe said.

A second mumps shot could be made a requirement in the future but nothing has been changed yet, she said.

In southern Illinois, Jackson County has seven reported cases of the mumps.

Of those seven, four are related to students at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. The first case was confirmed April 10 and the other three have shown symptoms, but the lab has not yet returned any positive results, said Sue Davis, spokeswoman for SIUC.

Two of the students live in apartments while the other two live in different residence halls, she said.

The infected students were either isolated or sent home to prevent spreading the infection further, Davis said.

“We’ve notified close contacts and friends of the infected students,” she said.

The infected students had all previously been immunized for the mumps, Davis said. They also had no prior contact with each other before being diagnosed.

For more information on mumps, visit the Center of Disease Control Web site at www.cdc.gov.