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   Prairie dogs could be the cause of mystery disease

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Topic: Prairie dogs could be the cause of mystery disease (Read 254 times)

Rhune
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Prairie dogs could be the cause of mystery disease
« on: Jun 8^th, 2003, 2:28am »

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Prairie dogs could be the cause of mystery disease
Saturday, June 7, 2003 Posted: 11:36 PM EDT (0336 GMT)

MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) -- 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, Illinois. 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.

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.

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Rhune
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Re: Prairie dogs could be the cause of mystery dis
« Reply #1 on: Jun 8^th, 2003, 2:31am »

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This article was particularly interesting to me, because I had a pet prairie dog in college. Ultimately I sold her through a pet shop to a family with a daughter that had downs syndrome. One of the things I learned when I purchased her was that they have a natural affinity for the mentally disabled, particularly people with downs syndrome. Prairie dogs are smart and social. They have little hands like a racoon and are very curious. The last I had heard, they were very happy with her and she just loved their daughter. It's a little known fact about them, so I thought I'd pass it along.

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