Sidney Crosby diagnosed with the mumps

Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby is the latest NHL player to come down with the mumps, even though he seemed to be a low-risk candidate to contract the disease.

His immunizations were up to date, and he even received a booster shot as part of his preparations to play for Canada in the Olympics in Russia last February.

When the entire Penguins team was tested for mumps, Crosby's antibody count against the virus "was one of the highest on the team," according to Dharmesh Vyas, the Penguins' team physician.

Instead, Crosby is the 14th NHL player to be diagnosed with mumps, the biggest name of a group that includes stars such as Anaheim Ducks forward Corey Perry and Minnesota Wild defenseman Ryan Suter. New York Rangers center Derick Brassard's diagnosis was announced hours after the Penguins' news conference about Crosby.

It is presumed there could be a few other cases that were not announced by teams.

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"It's obvious that we are concerned about it," Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford said. "We just don't know how far it could be spread."

The Penguins have been aggressively cleaning their dressing room since the outbreak started in the NHL in October.

The team has taken precautions, but the Crosby case is an indication of how difficult it is stop the spread.

Symptoms include swelling in the jaw, fever, chills, body aches and loss of appetite. Anaheim Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin had a fever for five days and lost 10 pounds.

But as of Sunday, Crosby had none of those symptoms.

"He didn't have the classic presentation of mumps," Vyas said. "The majority of mumps is bilateral. It's on both sides of the face, and again, at that time when we saw him and tested him, it was just one-sided."

Photos of Crosby on Friday showed one side of his face swollen. But the team's medical staff believed it was caused by an injury to his salivary gland that he suffered in a late November game against the Carolina Hurricanes. Just to be sure, Crosby was tested for mumps.

The test was negative. He practiced Friday, but the team decided to keep him out of Friday's and Saturday's games as a precaution while a test was sent to the Centers for Disease Control. That was positive for mumps.

Vyas said Crosby is in isolation but starting Monday, should be past his contagious period. He will miss at least Monday's game. The Penguins won't play again after that until Thursday.

"The CDC recommends five days of isolation before the virus infection period is completed," Vyas said. "We will continue to evaluate him daily and follow him closely to see how he is doing."

Symptoms vary from player to player. The NHL players diagnosed so far have missed two to eight games.

In November, the NHL sent team physicians and trainers a package of information about mumps and what can be done to reduce the chances of it ending up in their dressing room.

It's essentially the same approach NHL teams take with trying to prevent flu. They encourage washing of hands, dedicated water bottles for each player and making sure vaccinations are up-to-date.

But as the Crosby case proves, vaccination doesn't ensure immunity to mumps.

Gregory Wallace of the CDC told USA TODAY Sports last that the vaccine is only about 88% effective. In other words, if a group of 100 vaccinated people were exposed to mumps, 10 to 15 people might come down with mumps.

No one knows how mumps ended up in the NHL community, but Wallace said the CDC has seen outbreaks in situations where a group of people are closely congregated, such as in dressing rooms or dormitories.

Outbreaks have become rarer over time, but the CDC sees outbreaks in the U.S. from time to time. In 2006, there were 6,000 cases reported. In 2009-10, there were 3,000.

Mumps is spread through saliva or mucus from the mouth, nose or throat of an infected person through coughing, sneezing or talking.

It's possible that it could be passed from one player to another through physical contact on the ice, but Wallace said that would not be the common way to transmit it. The far more common way is for teammates to give it to each other.

Vyas said everything that can be done is being done.

"There's no pharmacological, medical treatment for it," he said. "It's just trying to curb the transmission from person to person."