Understanding recent US mumps outbreaks

A single strain of mumps virus has dominated the US since 2006, and is responsible for many of the large numbers of cases seen across the country in the widespread 2016-17 outbreaks. In a paper publishing February 11 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, Pardis Sabeti from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and colleagues analyze over 200 whole mumps virus genomes from patient swab samples, providing insights not obtained in standard public health surveillance efforts.