San Diego State University is dealing with a mumps outbreak that has sickened five student athletes on a single sports team, with county health officials now working alongside campus leadership to notify the wider student body. The first known symptoms surfaced on September 6, and a case was formally confirmed during the week of September 14.
County Public Health Services announced the outbreak Friday, saying it has confirmed five combined confirmed and probable mumps cases tied to student athletes on one SDSU team, according to a statement posted by San Diego County
on X. The agency said it is coordinating directly with SDSU leadership on notifications to the broader campus community as the situation develops.
Beyond alerting students and staff, the county's outbreak response includes testing known close contacts of the people who have fallen ill, the same statement from the county noted. That step is meant to identify any additional cases early and limit further spread among people who had close contact with the affected athletes.
County Is Also Working With State Health Officials
The response isn't limited to the campus and the county. San Diego County Public Health Services said it is collaborating with the California Department of Public Health and SDSU officials as the outbreak is managed, per the same statement. That three-way coordination mirrors how the county has handled mumps clusters on the SDSU campus before.
This isn't the first time mumps has surfaced at SDSU. The county's statement pointed to a similar outbreak on the campus in 2020 that was contained through collaboration between the County of San Diego and the university, though the statement did not detail how many cases were involved in that earlier episode or how long it took to bring under control.
Mumps and Close-Contact Settings
Public health researchers have long flagged college campuses as a common setting for mumps to spread. The CDC notes that most recent mumps outbreaks have occurred in settings involving intense or frequent close contact, such as college campuses or close-knit communities — conditions common among teammates who train, travel and compete together. Nationally, the scale of past clusters has varied: the CDC reported that 32 health departments logged 142 mumps cases between April 1 and December 31, 2020.
The CDC also maintains vaccination guidance that addresses groups considered at increased risk during a mumps outbreak, according to the agency's mumps vaccine information. San Diego County's statement did not specify vaccination status for any of the five current cases, nor did it identify the athletic team involved or say whether transmission occurred on campus.
For now, county officials are continuing to work through the notification and contact-testing process alongside SDSU and state health authorities. No further details on case counts, symptom severity or the specific team have been released beyond what the county shared in its initial announcement.
