Posted on 06/08/2003 2:30:27 PM PDT by Pokey78
Monkeypox, a viral disease related to smallpox but less infectious and deadly, has been detected for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. Three Midwestern states, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, reported at least 19 monkeypox cases over the weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Wisconsin reported the vast majority, 17, with Illinois and Indiana reporting one each. The patients ranged in age from 4 to 48 years, and all had had contact with direct or close contact with ill prairie dogs, which have become a common household pet. Several patients work for veterinarians or pet stores that handled the animals. No patients have died, although four have been hospitalized, C.D.C. officials said.
Wisconsin health officials said patients there typically fell ill with signs and symptoms like fever, headaches, nonproductive cough, swollen lymph nodes, chills and drenching sweats. From 1 to 10 days later, the patients developed a rash consisting of blister-like pimples that filled with pus and broke open, finally producing a crust. The rash occurred over the head, trunk and arms and legs, often appearing in different stages or crops.
Most patients became ill from 4 to 12 days after exposure to a sick animal, but the incubation period may have been as long as 20 days.
Laboratory tests performed by C.D.C. confirmed that the patients had been infected with the monkeypox virus. C.D.C. asked the physicians, veterinarians and members of the public to report to their local health departments any rash that developed within 21 days after exposure to prairie dogs, Gambian rats and other animals.
The Centers for Disease Control also advised workers caring for suspected monkeypox patients in hospitals to follow standard infection control measures like gloves, gowns and N-95 masks such as those used to protect against SARS. C.D.C. also advised veterinarians to take the same precautions in caring for sick prairie dogs, Gambian rats, other rodents and rabbits.
Monkeypox has long been known to cause sporadic infections in the rain forest areas of West Africa where several hundred cases have been reported in recent years. From 1 percent to 10 percent of monkey pox cases have been fatal in West Africa, according to different studies.
The sudden appearance of monkeypox in the United States is a surprise. Precisely how monkeypox reached the United States is unknown. Dr. Stephen M. Ostroff, a C.D.C. official said that his federal agency was investigating a number of theories, including an imported case in a traveler from West Africa or a sick animal.
Dr. Kurt Reed, an infectious disease pathologist who runs the microbiology lab and the clinical research center at Marshfield Clinic, a large research facility in central Wisconsin, said his lab was the first to isolate the virus, after a 4-year-old girl who had been bitten by her new pet prairie dog came in with an infected finger in mid-May. The girl's parents, who also had contact with the prairie dog, both later developed the disease, though her 38-year-old father, who had received the small pox vaccination as a child, had a milder case.
The girl came in with a necrotic, ulcerated lesion on her finger, Dr. Reed said, and bacterial cultures quickly ruled out tularemia and the plague. A biopsy of lesions taken from her mother showed a pox-like virus under the electron microscope. By June 2, cultures from her virus and from the prairie dog — which had died — matched and suggested orthopox, Dr. Reed said.
"Right then we knew we had something interesting," he said. "We do lots and lots of virus cultures. This was very unusual. There's nothing really in the literature about prairie dogs having pox viruses."
When the clinic contacted the state health department, the doctors discovered there had been similar cases in the Milwaukee area, and that the prairie dogs may have been housed with Gambian rats through an exotic pet dealer in suburban Chicago. "That really raised the suspicion that this was an old-world virus that had made its way into the United States," Dr. Reed said.
Prairie dogs and Gambian rats are part of a wide array of exotic animals feeding a growing and diversifying niche pet market, though some animal-rights activists oppose their domestication.
Prairie dogs, herbivorous members of the squirrel family that are found in the Rocky Mountain region, are believed to have a sophisticated communication system through smell and touch, and burrow complex underground tunnel systems.
The rats, which grow to the size of small cats, eat pet food mixes as well as fruits, vegetables and cooked meats. "They are intelligent, social and can be very gentle if handled from an early age," one enthusiast, Jazmyn Concolor, posted on the Web site, www.altpet.net, adding that one rat sleeps with, and does not chew to death, a stuffed toy lion. "They are not pets for everyone, requiring patience and understanding of their habits."
Most patients became ill from 4 to 12 days after exposure to a sick animal, but the incubation period may have been as long as 20 days.This is terrible. I spent last weekend at a motivational seminar in Montana where one of the exercises involved rolling around naked in a huge basket of cuddly-furry prairie dogs. I forgot precisely how the basket of prairie dogs was supposed to motivate me. I mean, I did want to get out of that basket really badly, so I suppose I was motivated in that sense. I enjoyed the fire-walking excerise more than the prairie dog exercise, at least until my ceremonial robe went up like a Roman candle.
No common sense. These are not bred for gentleness, right? Aren't we talking about a wild animal pet for a 4 year old?
Those of us who had smallpox vaccines years/decades ago should have some immunity.
What FairOpinion said. Are we in a 60's time warp here, or what? And where's PETA when you actually need it?
This sounds as if it might be the source. Maybe having Gambian rats as pets was a bad idea? Let's hope only pet prairie dogs are infected, and not the prairie dog population in the wild, or we will likely have yet another exotic foreign disease to worry about.
Yeah, I have already been thinking about the Grey Squirrels around here.
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