More monkeypox virus / prairie dogs stuff ..................
June 8, 2003
Monkeypox Virus Appears To Spread in the Midwest
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. -- A virus related to smallpox that has never been detected in the Western Hemisphere may be the cause of a mysterious disease that has spread from pet prairie dogs to people in the upper Midwest, health officials said.
James Hughes, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said a group of prairie dogs sold from a suburban Chicago pet distributor appears to be infected with the monkeypox virus, a member of the same viral family that causes smallpox but is not nearly as deadly.
Monkeypox typically has been found in West African rain forests, Dr. Hughes said. The death rate among infected humans has ranged from 1% to 10%. Dr. Hughes said that although monkeypox is spread primarily through rodents in Africa, scientists haven't ruled out person-to-person transmission.
Since early May, 17 possible cases have been reported in Wisconsin in people as young as 4 and as old as 48. One possible case has been reported in Illinois, and one has been reported in Indiana. They appear to have been exposed to prairie dogs -- rodents whose popularity as pets has grown in recent years. They reported fever, coughs, rashes and swollen lymph nodes.
CDC and state health officials are still researching the disease with samples from the infected prairie dogs and humans, but the virus appears susceptible to the antiviral drug cidofovir, Dr. Hughes said.
No one has died or become severely ill in the current outbreak, Dr. Hughes said. But four people in Wisconsin had to be hospitalized.
Authorities don't believe bioterrorism was involved.
Investigators have traced the origin of the outbreak to a pet distributor in Villa Park, Ill. That distributor had a giant Gambian rat, indigenous to African countries, that may have infected batches of prairie dogs, Dr. Hughes said.
Wisconsin health officials on Friday banned the sale, importation and display of prairie dogs, and some exotic-pet stores have been put under quarantine.
Copyright (c) 2003 The Associated Press
Updated June 8, 2003 9:54 p.m. |
