1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

Repeated introductions and intensive community transmission fueled a mumps virus outbreak in Washington State

  1. Louise Hillier Moncla  Is a corresponding author
  2. Allison Black
  3. Chase DeBolt
  4. Misty Lang
  5. Nicholas R Graff
  6. Ailyn C Pérez-Osorio
  7. Nicola F Müller
  8. Dirk Haselow
  9. Scott Lindquist
  10. Trevor Bedford  Is a corresponding author
  1. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, United States
  2. University of Washington, United States
  3. Washington State Department of Health, United States
  4. Arkansas Department of Health, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66448
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Cite this article
  1. Louise Hillier Moncla
  2. Allison Black
  3. Chase DeBolt
  4. Misty Lang
  5. Nicholas R Graff
  6. Ailyn C Pérez-Osorio
  7. Nicola F Müller
  8. Dirk Haselow
  9. Scott Lindquist
  10. Trevor Bedford
(2021)
Repeated introductions and intensive community transmission fueled a mumps virus outbreak in Washington State
eLife 10:e66448.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66448
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  3. Download .RIS

Abstract

In 2016/2017, Washington State experienced a mumps outbreak despite high childhood vaccination rates, with cases more frequently detected among school-aged children and members of the Marshallese community. We sequenced 166 mumps virus genomes collected in Washington and other US states, and traced mumps introductions and transmission within Washington. We uncover that mumps was introduced into Washington approximately 13 times, primarily from Arkansas, sparking multiple co-circulating transmission chains. Although age and vaccination status may have impacted transmission, our dataset could not quantify their precise effects. Instead, the outbreak in Washington was overwhelmingly sustained by transmission within the Marshallese community. Our findings underscore the utility of genomic data to clarify epidemiologic factors driving transmission, and pinpoint contact networks as critical for mumps transmission. These results imply that contact structures and historic disparities may leave populations at increased risk for respiratory virus disease even when a vaccine is effective and widely used.

Data availability

All code used to analyze data, input files for BEAST, and all code used to generate figures for this manuscript are publicly available at https://github.com/blab/mumps-wa-phylodynamics. Raw FASTQ files with human reads removed are available under SRA project number PRJNA641715. All protocols for generating sequence data as well as the consensus genomes are available at https://github.com/blab/mumps-seq. Consensus genomes have also been deposited to Genbank under accessions MT859507-MT859672.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Louise Hillier Moncla

    Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, SEATTLE, United States
    For correspondence
    lhmoncla@gmail.com
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5722-1988

  2. Allison Black

    University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Chase DeBolt

    Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Washington State Department of Health, Shoreline, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Misty Lang

    Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Washington State Department of Health, Shorelinee, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Nicholas R Graff

    Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Washington State Department of Health, Shoreline, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Ailyn C Pérez-Osorio

    Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Washington State Department of Health, Shoreline, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  7. Nicola F Müller

    Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, SEATTLE, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  8. Dirk Haselow

    Epidemiology, Arkansas Department of Health, Little Rock, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  9. Scott Lindquist

    Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Washington State Department of Health, Shoreline, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  10. Trevor Bedford

    Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, United States
    For correspondence
    tbedford@fredhutch.org
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4039-5794

Funding

National Science Foundation (DGE-1256082)

  • Allison Black

Life Sciences Research Foundation

  • Louise Hillier Moncla

National Institutes of Health (R35 GM119774-01)

  • Trevor Bedford

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

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  1. Louise Hillier Moncla
  2. Allison Black
  3. Chase DeBolt
  4. Misty Lang
  5. Nicholas R Graff
  6. Ailyn C Pérez-Osorio
  7. Nicola F Müller
  8. Dirk Haselow
  9. Scott Lindquist
  10. Trevor Bedford
(2021)
Repeated introductions and intensive community transmission fueled a mumps virus outbreak in Washington State
eLife 10:e66448.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66448

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66448

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