Vaccines and Preventable Diseases:
Healthcare Worker Vaccination
Prevention & Control of Mumps in Healthcare Settings
Prevention and control strategies should be applied in all healthcare settings where patient care occurs, including outpatient and long-term care facilities. An effective vaccination program is the best approach to prevent healthcare-associated mumps transmission. Healthcare facilities are encouraged to review employee immunization status for mumps and other vaccine preventable infections.
Persons born during or after 1957:
Adequate mumps vaccination for healthcare workers born during or after 1957 consists of 2 doses of a live mumps virus vaccine. Healthcare workers with no history of mumps vaccination and no other evidence of immunity should receive 2 doses (at a minimum interval of 28 days between doses). Healthcare workers who have received only 1 dose previously should receive a second dose.
Persons born before 1957:
Because birth before 1957 is only presumptive evidence of immunity, healthcare facilities should consider recommending at least 1 dose of a live mumps virus vaccine for unvaccinated workers born before 1957 who do not have physician-diagnosed mumps or laboratory evidence of mumps immunity. In addition, during a mumps outbreak, healthcare facilities should strongly consider recommending 2 doses of a live mumps virus vaccine to unvaccinated healthcare personnel born before 1957 who do not have evidence of mumps immunity. Facilities should plan in advance the logistics required to implement this 2-dose recommendation and may choose to proceed with appropriate assessment and vaccination before an outbreak occurs.
Receipt of MMR or MMRV vaccine is not a reason to exclude personnel from work.
See also: Why might some people born before 1957 need to be vaccinated with MMR?
NOTE: The combination MMRV vaccine is not licensed for those over 12 years old.
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Content last reviewed on July 1, 2010
Content Source: National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases