Monkeypox: New disease

2003-06-08 13:41

Madison, Wisconsin - 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 on Saturday.

Dr James Hughes, director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases at the Centres 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% to 10%.

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.

No bioterrorism suspected

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 hospitalised at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, hospital spokesperson Mark McLaughlin said. Two remained hospitalised in satisfactory condition on 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 hHealth and family services issued an emergency order on Friday banning the sale, importation and display of prairie dogs. - Sapa-AP

- SAPA