This version adds an additional case of mumps discovered on Ryerson campus and some background to other cases of mumps discovered in Toronto this year.
The viral disease, mumps, has made its way onto Ryerson campus.
It was discovered last week that an employee of the athletics department was infected with mumps while scorekeeping for several intramurals at Ryerson’s Recreation and Athletics Centre (RAC). Details of the incident were disclosed only to staff of the athletics department in an email sent Wednesday.
Barbara Yaffe, acting medical officer of health for the City of Toronto, had sent the email to Heather Adam, manager of operations and strategy for the RAC, notifying her of the incident. The email is what first alerted RAC management of the mumps case on their premises.
In the email, Yaffe also wrote that symptoms of mumps include “fever, swelling of glands, headache, muscle aches, and loss of appetite,” and suggested reporting any cases to Toronto Public Health.
After being notified, Adam sent an email to the entire athletics and recreation staff, writing that the employee in question was still in the “contagious stage” of the disease while she was scorekeeping games.
As an employer of the athletics department, Adam said her only “obligation was to inform her own staff.”
She added that “the public health officer reaches out separately to the university and it is their responsibility to share [the information], as they see fit, to students/health centre, etc.”
A press release issued by the university Friday afternoon around 4 p.m. informed students, staff and faculty on how to protect themselves from the disease. It made no mention of the incident at the RAC.
The City of Toronto could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
There have now been two mumps cases at Ryerson to date, although it isn’t clear when the second one was reported. Five have been reported overall within Toronto schools, and 43 cases in all of Toronto since February, according to a report from CP24.
The first outbreak was said to have been connected to bars and restaurants in the city’s west end.
