Usual symptoms

• Mumps usually starts with a high fever, headache, tiredness or lack of energy (malaise), muscle aches (myalgia), a sore throat, runny nose, cough and loss of appetite.
• About 60 to 70 per cent of people who have mumps develop swelling of the salivary glands under one or both ears or jaws (parotitis).
• About 30 per cent of people who catch mumps don’t get sick but they can spread it to other people and those people can get sick.

Common symptoms

• About 15 to 30 per cent of adolescent (teenage) boys and adult men with mumps get inflammation (swelling) of one or both of their testicles (balls). This only rarely causes infertility (being unable to make a woman pregnant).
• About 10 per cent of people with mumps develop signs of a brain infection called meningitis, but permanent brain damage is rare. Temporary deafness is relatively common with a brain infection caused by mumps.      

Rare symptoms

• About 0.02 per cent of children with mumps develop a brain infection called encephalitis.
• About 1 per cent of children who get mumps encephalitis die.
• About 0.005 per cent of children with a brain infection caused by mumps (meningitis or encephalitis) become permanently deaf.     
• Mumps can cause miscarriage if a woman catches it early in her pregnancy.

In Australia, children receive the MMR vaccine, which strengthens immunity to mumps, measles and rubella, and the MMRV vaccine which also strengthens immunity to varicella (chickenpox).

It is recommended that children get a vaccine that protects against mumps at 12 months and 18 months.

It is important that children get all their vaccinations on time to ensure they have the  best possible protection against infectious diseases.

No, there is no risk that your child will catch mumps because the mumps-containing combination vaccines, MMR and MMRV, only contain a weakened version of the mumps virus. This weakened virus trains your child’s immune system to recognise and fight the disease, but does not cause the disease. Occasionally, children receiving the vaccine experience swelling of the salivary gland under their jaw or one of their ears (parotitis) similar to mumps disease, but they fully recover.

Children with cancer or serious immune system diseases should not have live vaccines, including MMR and MMRV, as they can become very unwell. Your immunisation provider will screen for these conditions before giving your child their vaccine.

• About 10 per cent of children who get a vaccine that protects against mumps experience local swelling, redness or pain at the injection site. These symptoms usually resolve within one or two days.   
• Between 5 and 15 per cent of children who get a vaccine that protects against mumps develop a high fever and tiredness or lack of energy (malaise) between five and 12 days after their first dose of the vaccine. 
• About 5 per cent of children who get a vaccine that protects against mumps get a rash which cannot spread to anyone else.
• Side effects are more common after the first dose of a vaccine that protects against mumps, recommended at 12 months.

• Up to 1.6 per cent of children who get a vaccine that protects against mumps get swollen glands, a stiff neck or joint pains.
• About 0.03 per cent of children who get a first dose of a vaccine that protects against mumps experience febrile convulsions (fits). These happen when a baby or child's temperature (fever) goes up suddenly. Febrile convulsions don’t have long-term effects on a child’s health and development.
• Between 0.003 and 0.005 per cent of children who get a vaccine that protects against mumps develop a blood disorder called thrombocytopenia (a low platelet count in the blood) after their first dose of the MMR vaccine. Thrombocytopenia causes children to bruise or bleed very easily. It usually lasts for between one and six months and then gets better.
• About 0.0001 per cent of people have an allergic reaction after vaccination that affects their whole body, called anaphylaxis. This reaction usually happens within 15 minutes of getting the vaccination and can be treated with an injection of adrenaline. People who have this reaction usually recover quickly and don’t experience any long-term effects.

The prevalence of mumps has declined considerably since the introduction of a vaccine in the early 1980s.²