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Q.C. health officials urging parents to vaccinate their children

Officials with the Rock Island County Health Department are urging parents to have their children vaccinated after a “probable” case of mumps was id...

Officials with the Rock Island County Health Department are urging parents to have their children vaccinated after a "probable" case of mumps was identified at John Deere Middle School in Moline.

"A probable case means that clinically, with the symptoms and the lab work that was done, it meets the criteria that the Illinois Department of Public Health has setup for a case of mumps," Terri Davies said, the assistant public information officer for the Rock Island County Health Department.

The Rock Island Health Department could not release details about the child's vaccination records, but they said the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccination could prevent the potentially dangerous disease.

The vaccine is typically given in two series, once when a child is between 12 and 15 months, and again between ages four and six.

"It's something that is so simple to do, yet can prevent so many serious complications in a child," Davies said.

Some parents in the United States have neglected to vaccinate their children due to fear that the vaccine could spur autistic symptoms. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) and the Institute of Medicine have rejected those claims, Davies said.

Parents can bypass the vaccination requirement with a valid medical or religious reason.

In 1968, before many children were vaccinated for mumps, there were 152,000 cases of the disease in the United States, compared to 396 cases in 2008, when the majority of children had been vaccinated, Davies said.

Rock Island County Health officials said approximately 98 percent of Moline students are vaccinated for mumps. The last confirmed case of mumps in Rock Island County was in December of 2014.

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