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From my HSSC First Alert Notifiation:

At least 19 people in three Midwestern states have contracted a disease related
to smallpox, marking the first outbreak of the life-threatening illness in the
United States, federal heath officials said yesterday.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concerned that the
illness could spread, issued a nationwide alert to doctors and public health
officials to be on the lookout for more cases.

"We have an outbreak," said James Hughes, director of the CDC's National Center
for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta. "I'd like to keep it relatively small. I
don't want any more cases. We're doing everything we can to try to contain
this."

The disease, known as monkeypox, usually only occurs in central and western
Africa. It is caused by a virus known as an orthopox virus, which is the family
of viruses that includes the smallpox virus, one of the most dangerous diseases
known to man and a feared biological weapon.

Officials said there was no indication that bioterrorism was involved. The
disease was apparently spread by a type of rodent known as a prairie dog, which
have become popular as pets. The animals may have acquired the infection from
another creature, known as a Gambian giant rat, sold by the same dealer of
exotic animals, officials said.

The monkeypox virus causes symptoms that are very similar to smallpox -- fever,
headache, cough and an extremely painful rash of pus-filled sores that spreads
across the body.

While much about monkeypox virus is unclear, it is not believed to be as deadly
as smallpox. Monkeypox is believed to have a mortality rate of between 1 percent
and 10 percent, compared with a mortality rate of about 30 percent for smallpox.

The monkeypox virus is believed to spread through physical contact with a sick
person or infected animal, or through infected body fluids, although it is not
believed to be as easily spread as smallpox, which is highly infectious.

Monkeypox is untreatable, although there is some indication that an antiviral
drug may have some usefulness. Because the disease has never been seen before in
this part of the world, the severity of the threat is not completely clear. All
patients and infected animals have been isolated to prevent spread of the
disease. The smallpox vaccine is believed to be protective against the monkeypox
virus. The federal government recently launched a campaign to vaccinate
thousands of emergency workers against smallpox so the country would be prepared
in the event of a bioterrorist attack.

"This is an unusual event. As far as we can tell, there's never been a human or
animal illness in the community setting in the Western hemisphere by a virus
that is either a monkeypox virus or a very close variant of the monkeypox
virus," said Hughes, who held a hastily arranged telebriefing last evening to
announce the outbreak after CDC scientists confirmed that a monkeypox virus or
one very close to it was involved.

"We've got a disease that's not been seen before in the Western Hemisphere, so
it's prudent to take it very seriously," Hughes said in a telephone interview
after the briefing.

Of the 19 cases reported so far, four of the victims have been hospitalized;
none has died, Hughes said.

The outbreak came to light on May 16, when a 3 1/2-year-old child became ill,
according to John Melski, who treated the child at the Marshfield Clinic in
Marshfield, Wis.

The child's parents had bought two prairie dogs as a Mother's Day present for
the child's mother. Both the mother and father subsequently became ill as well,
although all appear to have recovered.

Officials determined that the prairie dogs had been purchased from a Villa Park,
Ill., exotic pet dealer, who also became ill. The dealer also had a Gambian rat,
which was ill. It is believed that animal passed the virus to the prairie dogs
the dealer was selling.

The dealer sold the animals to SK Exotics, a Milwaukee pet distributor, which
then sold the apparently infected prairie dogs to two pet stores in Milwaukee
and at a "pet swap" in northern Wisconsin.

Most of the rest of the cases have been reported in the Milwaukee area, and are
believed to have involved people who either worked at the stores or who handled
the animals in the stores. Seventeen of the cases occurred in Milwaukee, with
one case each having been reported in Illinois and Indiana.

Melski and his colleagues at the Marshfield Clinic contacted state health
officials when they identified what appeared to be an orthopox virus in the sick
family. State health officials then contacted the CDC, which confirmed the
involvement of a monkeypox-like virus yesterday, prompting the nationwide alert
and telebriefing.

The state of Wisconsin has temporarily banned the sale of prairie dogs.

"The full impact is hard to predict," said Seth Foldy, Milwaukee's health
commissioner. "Our goal would be to isolate and eliminate the virus from both
human and animal populations to the best of our ability. We do not know if it is
the kind of agent that would or could thrive in North America, and we're not
very interested in finding out that it is."

Further tests are planned to confirm the identity of the virus.

The outbreak comes as the global epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) appears to be coming under control.

"This is yet another reminder of why it's important to learn as much as you can
about diseases that occur in faraway places," Hughes said.