Mysterious illness caused by pet prairie dogs is possibly monkeypox

(6/07/03 - MADISON, WI) — A virus related to smallpox that has never been detected in the Western Hemisphere may be the cause of a mysterious disease spreading from pet prairie dogs to people across the upper Midwest, health officials said Saturday.

Arsenal of weapons found in girl's bedroom; four teens arrested Watch for construction closures on Houston roads this weekend Fire erupts at plant on Ship Channel Driver flees scene after fiery accident kills his passenger Argument in strip center parking lot turns into deadly shooting Three-alarm strip center fire destroys nail salon Jury to decide fate of officers after immigrant died in their custody Family narrowly avoids tragedy while returning from water park Handcuffed suspect escapes from back seat of patrol car More recent stories Dr. 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 has typically been found in West African rain forests, Hughes said. The death rate among infected humans has ranged from 1 percent to 10 percent.

Hughes said although monkeypox is spread primarily through rodents in Africa, scientists haven't ruled out person-to-person transmission.

"We're in the very early stages of classifying this virus," Hughes said. "We're not certain."

I just started to look, and what I am finding, I don't like.

WHERE did these prairie dogs come from?!

Monkey pox - is a rare smallpox like disease of children in central Africa. It is acquired from monkeys or wild squirrels, but does occasionally spread from man to man in unvaccinated communities. Antigenically cross-reacts with other poxviruses. Sick monkeys have not been identified, but apparently healthy animals have antibodies.

http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/mmi/jmoodie/pox2.html

Monkey Pox and Small Pox
In the 20 years since WHO documented that small pox has been eradicated, doctors and health departments no longer vaccinate children or adults to prevent small pox. Indeed, the WHO planned to destroy the remaining small pox viruses that have been kept by the CDC in the US and in Novosibirsk in Russia (ASA 94-6 ). Small pox vaccinations also protected against monkey pox (normally transmitted from monkeys to humans) and an unanticipated result has been an increase in monkey pox in humans. Not only is monkey pox increasing, but the number of human-to-human transmissions are also increasing. There have been over 170 new cases of monkey pox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) since March 1997. While some cases may be chicken pox, there is enough concern that WHO is sending an investigating team in to the Congo.

http://www.asanltr.com/ASANews-97/poxvaccines.htm

As I am doing more research, it is supposed to be very rare and in Africa, and with all that,I think this should be FrontPage News, I hope the Admin Moderator agrees.

====
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/monkeypox.htm

Monkeypox outbreak in Africa biggest ever - U.S.

December 15, 1997

ATLANTA, Reuters [WS] via Individual Inc. :
The largest outbreak of human monkeypox ever reported has caused more than 500 people to become ill in the Democratic Republic of Congo, health officials said Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said children 16 and under accounted for 85 percent of the 511 human monkeypox cases that have occurred in the former Zaire since February 1996.

The CDC said it was the largest human monkeypox outbreak ever recorded. Five deaths were recorded, all of them of children aged between 4 and 8.

Monkeypox is a sister virus of smallpox and is generally spread by squirrels and monkeys in the rain forests of western and central Africa. Before the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, cases of monkeypox in humans were rare.

Dr. Brian Mahy of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases said the outbreak does not suggest that the virus has become more virulent. ``We don't think that the virus has changed in any noticeable way since the early 1980s,'' he said.

The increase in monkeypox cases may have occurred because of a combination of exposure to animals and the end of smallpox vaccination programs after the illness was eliminated in 1980. The smallpox vaccine also protected against monkeypox.

``We know that there's been a lot of rebel fighting and disturbance in that area, which may have resulted in people going out of their houses to the bush a little bit more,'' Mahy said. ``That could provide much greater contact with the animals from which this disease is normally acquired.''

Monkeypox resembles smallpox, causing fever, swollen lymph nodes, respiratory illness and pus-filled blisters on the skin. There is no cure for the still rare and generally nonfatal viral disease, which generally lasts about a week.

Mahy said the outbreak of monkeypox does not suggest a resurgence of smallpox, which was eliminated worldwide in 1980. ``It is clearly quite different from smallpox, and it is not the sort of virus that could mutate into smallpox. There are major, major differences between the two,'' he said.

Last week the World Health Organization said it was not urging the reintroduction of smallpox vaccination programs in Africa to prevent monkeypox. Instead, it recommended limited contact with animals caught in the wild and with people who are believed to have become infected.

MONKEY POX
http://www.ksu.edu/research/animal/occhs/fact31.htm

SPECIES: Nonhuman primates, primarily macaques

AGENT: Orthopoxvirus Disease in humans is indistinguishable from smallpox, (Variola) i.e., serologic & clinical syndrome.

RESERVOIR AND INCIDENCE: Animals: Nine reported outbreaks in captive NHP's, primarily rhesus and cynomolgus. Has also been reported in languors, baboons, chimpanzees, orangutans, marmosets, gorillas, gibbons, and squirrel monkeys. The virus has been isolated from a wild squirrel. Man: The first human case of Monkey Pox was reported in 1970. Between 1970 and 1986, over 400 cases had been reported from tropical rain forested areas of West and Central Africa.

TRANSMISSION: Transmission can be via direct contact, aerosol, ingestion, or parenteral administration. Person to person transmission can occur.

DISEASE IN NONHUMAN PRIMATES: Usually exhibit a high morbidity and low mortality. Clinical signs may be inapparent or an animal may exhibit fever, lymphadenopathy, and cutaneous eruptions of the extremities, trunk, lips, or face. Cynomologus monkeys seem to be most severely affected. Death is uncommon except in infant monkeys.

DISEASE IN MAN: Signs in man include fever, sore throat, headache, and a vesiculopustular rash of peripheral distribution which clears up in 5 to 25 days. Severe complications include bronchopneumonia, vomiting, and diarrhea. Case fatality rate 10-15%. Although the disease is not common in man it is important from the standpoint of differentiating it from smallpox.

DIAGNOSIS: based on progression of lesions, histopathology and virus isolation. On histological examination epidermal cells contain eosinophilic cytoplasmic and intranuclear inclusions. ELISA

TREATMENT: Symptomatic.

PREVENTION/CONTROL: Sanitation, isolation. Vaccination with vaccinia virus is protective in both man and nonhuman primates.

BIOSAFETY LEVEL: BL-1

Here is the full text of the original article, of which you posted an excerpt, so we keep it for archiving, in case there are developments.

Mysterious illness caused by pet prairie dogs is possibly monkeypox
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/60703_nat_monkeypox.html

By The Associated Press
(6/07/03 - MADISON, WI) — A virus related to smallpox that has never been detected in the Western Hemisphere may be the cause of a mysterious disease spreading from pet prairie dogs to people across the upper Midwest, health officials said Saturday.

Dr. 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 has typically been found in West African rain forests, Hughes said. The death rate among infected humans has ranged from 1 percent to 10 percent.

Hughes said although monkeypox is spread primarily through rodents in Africa, scientists haven't ruled out person-to-person transmission.

"We're in the very early stages of classifying this virus," Hughes said. "We're not certain."

Since early May, 17 possible cases have been reported in Wisconsin in people as young as 4 and as old as 48. Two possible cases have been reported in Illinois and one has been reported in Indiana, health officials from all three states said.

They appeared 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 anti-viral drug Cidofovir, Hughes said. He isn't aware of any long-term aftereffects of monkeypox.

No one has died or become severely ill in the current outbreak, Hughes said. But four people in Wisconsin had to be hospitalized at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, hospital spokesman Mark McLaughlin said. Two remained hospitalized in satisfactory condition Saturday.

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, Hughes said.

SK Exotics, a South Milwaukee pet distributor, bought prairie dogs from the Villa Park distributor and imported them to Wisconsin.

Two pet stores, Hoffer TropicLife Pets in Milwaukee and Rainbow Pets in Shorewood, a Milwaukee suburb, bought some dogs from SK Exotics.

More prairie dogs from Villa Park found their way to northern Wisconsin through a Wausau swap meet, said Dr. Mark Wegner, chief of the Wisconsin Communicable Disease Epidemiology Section.

Wisconsin agriculture officials have taken several emergency steps since word of the outbreak broke earlier this week.

The state Department of Health and Family Services issued an emergency order Friday banning the sale, importation and display of prairie dogs.

Also Friday, acting state veterinarian Dr. Robert Ehlenfeldt imposed quarantines on SK Exotics, Hoffer TropicLife Pets, Rainbow Pets and the Dorchester home of Tammy Kautzer, who apparently sells animals to swap meets, Gilson said.

The quarantines prohibit movement of any prairie dogs or mammals that come in contact with them.

"I wouldn't want to do it any other way than to follow the rules and find out exactly what's going on," said Eileen Whitmarsh, co-owner of Rainbow Pets.

Calls left at Kautzer's home and Hoffer TropicLife Pets were not returned. No listing could be found for SK Exotics.

Whitmarsh said she got two female prairie dogs from SK Exotics on May 5. Neither looked sick at first, she said, but one eventually began to look tired.

She said the store immediately quarantined them. SK Exotics took them back on May 12, she said.

Whitmarsh said she got sick in mid-May with blisters, coughing and a 101-degree fever. Hospital staff gave her aspirin, told her it was a viral infection and she went home, she said.

Whitmarsh said she didn't feel better and ended up going to West Allis Memorial Hospital five days later, where she was given antibiotics. She finally felt better around Memorial Day, she said.

Meanwhile, state and federal investigators are still trying to track down animals sold from the Villa Park distributor. The source of the Gambian rat is still unknown, they said.

Last Updated: Jun 7, 2003

From the New England Journal of Medicine

More than 20 years have passed since the last case of smallpox was confirmed and 18 years since the International Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication of the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that the global eradication of smallpox had been achieved.1,2 Now, new dilemmas confront the world. Could recent outbreaks of human monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (known as Zaire from 1971 to 1997)3,4,5 represent the return of another form of smallpox?6 Could variola (smallpox) virus be used as a weapon of biologic terrorism? And what are the implications of the decision of the WHO to advise the destruction of all isolates of the smallpox virus in June 1999?7

Monkeypox in Humans

Recent reports of large outbreaks of possible cases of monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have raised questions as to whether monkeypox could sustain itself as an infection transmitted from human to human, in the same way as smallpox.3,4,5 Smallpox vaccine protects against monkeypox, but no one is being immunized against smallpox anymore. Might monkeypox soon take over the ecologic niche left vacant by smallpox?6 The available data do not support this possibility.

The first case of human monkeypox was identified in 1970, and through 1979, 55 cases of monkeypox were confirmed by the WHO in forested areas of western and central Africa, of which 44 cases (80 percent) occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.8,9,10 The clinical picture of monkeypox (Figure 1) resembles that of smallpox in Central Africa.

....Proponents of destruction argue that the genomes of reference strains have been cloned and sequenced,35,36,37 through cooperative efforts of American and Russian scientists.38,39,40,41,42 Moreover, monkeypox virus has proved a valuable surrogate for variola: its genomic DNA has more than 90 percent homology with that of variola virus. Monkeypox illness in humans and in macaques closely resembles smallpox in humans, and the disease can be prevented in animals by vaccination. In contrast, there is no satisfactory animal model of smallpox. Work with variola virus must be performed in a biosafety-level 4 laboratory, whereas studies with monkeypox require less stringent precautions. The views of developing countries where smallpox was formerly endemic must also be weighed, since they contributed the most money and human resources to the eradication of smallpox. These countries have advocated the destruction of variola-virus stocks.7

During 1995, scientists from the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services undertook to determine what, if any, studies involving the use of intact variola virus would be critical to public health and national security. It was decided that if a model of monkeypox infection in macaques proved unsatisfactory, studies would be warranted to find a technique to grow variola virus in a genetically or chemically altered mammalian host. The macaque monkeypox model indicated that studies of pathogenesis, the protective efficacy of vaccines, and the therapeutic potential of antiviral compounds could be conducted successfully (Jahrling P, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases: personal communication).

....Conclusions Reports suggesting that monkeypox might replace smallpox as a serious epidemic threat are unsubstantiated, but the threat posed by the possible use of smallpox as a terrorist weapon is genuine. Because of the gravity of this threat, all known stocks of variola virus should be destroyed as soon as possible. The deliberate deployment of this virus must be discouraged by whatever means possible.

Poxvirus Dilemmas — Monkeypox, Smallpox, and Biologic Terrorism

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