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In a world that is getting smaller and more crowded, where people -- and animals -- can travel around the globe in a matter of hours, experts say outbreaks of diseases like monkeypox, SARS and West Nile virus will continue to increase. "This is part of a new normal of emerging infectious diseases," said CDC Director Julie Gerberding. "This is a global community" and the recent outbreaks "illustrate the tendency for a problem in one corner of the world to emerge as a problem in another corner of the world." Monkeypox, which first appeared in the Western Hemisphere last month,...

Press Releases Customs and Border Protection Enforce CDC Embargo to Prevent Spread of Monkeypox Virus For Immediate Release Bureau of Customs and Border Protection June 13, 2003 Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection has joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enforce the embargo on importation of all rodents from Africa, in an effort to prevent further spread of the monkeypox virus in the U.S. The embargo was imposed because at least six different species of potentially infected rodents have been implicated in the current outbreak of monkeypox...

CHICAGO -- State officials have tracked down all but two prairie dogs sold to Illinois buyers by a suburban Chicago business where the weeklong outbreak of monkeypox originated, an Agriculture Department spokesman said Friday. Spokesman Jeff Squibb said officials have located two of four Gambian giant rats -- the animal believed to have infected the prairie dogs with monkeypox -- sold within Illinois by the same business. He said they continue to search for the other two, which were given away by the buyer. In all, Squibb said officials have tracked down 19 of 21 prairie dogs sold within Illinois...

WASHINGTON, June 12 (UPI) -- The recent outbreak of monkeypox in the United States and the delay in alerting healthcare personnel to its spread highlights the need for a national communications system to alert physicians and public health officials rapidly about bioterrorist attacks or emerging diseases such as SARS and West Nile virus. Over the past several weeks, dozens of Americans might have been infected with monkeypox –- a close but less-deadly cousin of smallpox -- in its first outbreak in the Western Hemisphere. Doctors in Wisconsin saw the first patient May 22 when a 4-year-old girl developed a rash...

CHICAGO - Health officials investigating an outbreak of monkeypox that apparently spread from pet prairie dogs to people in three Midwestern states said Monday the number of possible cases has risen to at least 40. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported four confirmed human cases Monday of monkeypox, a smallpox-related virus that has never before appeared in the Western Hemisphere. Seven people have been hospitalized; no one has died. Steve Ostroff, deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, said he expects the numbers to rise as human and animal samples are tested. But Ostroff said...

PRINT THIS STORY | E-MAIL THIS STORY U.S. bans prairie dog sale, trade Smallpox vaccine recommended to control spread of exotic disease By DANIEL YEE, Associated Press June 12, 2003 ATLANTA - The U.S. government banned the sale of prairie dogs, prohibited the importation of African rodents and recommended smallpox shots Wednesday for people exposed to monkeypox, the exotic African disease that has spread from pet prairie dogs to humans. The government's aggressive response to the disease came the same day that the federal investigation of the monkeypox outbreak was expanded to eight more states, including Tennessee, bringing the total...

For the first time in the United States, monkeypox may have spread from person-to-person. A southeastern Wisconsin health care worker may have contracted monkeypox from a human patient, state epidemiologist Jeff Davis said. MONKEYPOX Afraid Of Monkeypox? Fact Sheet CDC Info. WHO Info. Guidelines For Vets, Pet Owners Previously, U.S. patients with monkeypox contracted the disease from infected animals. Davis declined to identify the health care worker or where the worker was located. He said health officials and scientists haven't confirmed the presence of the monkeypox virus in the worker, but they suspect it and are still testing tissue specimens....

Tue Jun 10,10:46 AM ET Schyan Kautzer, 3, of Dorchester, Wis. shows her right index finger Monday June 9, 2003, where she was bitten by a pet prairie dog infected with monkeypox. Schyan Kautzer was the first case of the virus identified. The quarantine of the Kautzer home and five-acre hobby farm was ordered last Friday. (AP Photo/ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Mary Jo Walicki)

It's a new health threat that is setting off a major alarm. Dozens of cases of Monkeypox have been reported in three midwestern states. Health officials are investigating a suspected case of the virus in an eleven-year-old in New Jersey. Health investigators have also had their eye on Tennessee. As environments change and world travel and trade increase, germs once confined to animals often spread to human populations. The U-S cases of Monkeypox started when an infected rat passed on the disease to prairie dogs at an exotic pet store in Chicago. ...snip...The original source of the U-S invasion is...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. health authorities on Wednesday recommended smallpox vaccinations for anyone exposed to "monkeypox" either from infected pets or from the roughly 63 human cases, all but one in the U.S. Midwest. The U.S. government also banned the importation or trade of African rodents, including Gambian rats believed to be the original source of the smallpox-like illness previously unseen in the Western Hemisphere, said David Fleming, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "I'm confident that everything that can be done is being done to prevent the spread of this virus," Fleming told...

ATLANTA - The U.S. government banned the sale of prairie dogs, prohibited the importation of African rodents and recommended smallpox shots Wednesday for people exposed to monkeypox, the exotic African disease that has spread from pet prairie dogs to humans. The smallpox vaccine can prevent monkeypox up to two weeks after exposure to the virus, but is most effective in the first four days. "We're optimistic we can deliver the vaccine to these people in time to do good," said Dr. David Fleming, deputy director for Public Health and Science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news -...

Monkeypox cases 'will go up' June 11, 2003 BY DAN ROZEK, Staff Reporter As more suspected human cases of monkeypox virus were reported in Illinois, state officials said Tuesday they've found only about half of the estimated 130 prairie dogs sold by the Villa Park dealer whose animals may be linked to the nation's first outbreak of the rare African disease. And the illness, which had been limited to Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, may have turned up in a new state as New Jersey health officials said an 11-year-old boy there apparently has been sickened by the virus. But the...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- New Jersey health officials were awaiting test results Tuesday to determine if a child from the state is infected with monkeypox. The 11-year-old boy came into contact with a pair of prairie dogs while visiting a family friend in a Midwestern state where the infection has spread, state officials said. Results on blood and lesion samples from the boy sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected in several days. Nationally, health officials were working to contain the spread of the monkeypox virus, which is related to smallpox and apparently has never before...

As if SARS, mad cow and West Nile virus were not enough, Health Canada is advising public health officials to be on the lookout for monkeypox, a serious disease related to smallpox, which has made its first appearance in North America. No cases have been reported in Canada, but an advisory is being sent to medical officials and public health labs across the country about an "epidemic" in the U.S. and the need to watch for the disease, said Dr. Frank Plummer, head of Health Canada's national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg. Thirty-seven people in the U.S. Midwest are believed to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The monkeypox outbreak illustrates a growing problem: Exotic animals give exotic diseases to people who get too close, a trend that some medical specialists call a serious public health threat. Such diseases can become a threat not just to the people who buy and sell exotic pets, but to the general public if they spread to native animals and become established in the United States. Federal health officials are working frantically to ensure doesn't happen with monkeypox. "This is a harbinger of things to come," warns Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, who advises the government...

The Russians worked with monkeypox virus, a close cousin to smallpox, in their bioweapons program and it is possible terrorists could use it in a biological attack against the United States, scientists and former United Nations weapons inspectors told United Press International. Although some biological weapons experts are concerned with the possibility of terrorists using another smallpox-related virus called camelpox, which Iraq has admitted to researching, Mark Buller, a biologist at Saint Louis University who conducts research on smallpox vaccines, said he is more concerned about monkeypox. Buller's concern stems from the fact that monkeypox, unlike camelpox, causes mortality in...

Health Officials First Feared Prairie Dog Sickness in Midwest Was Smallpox Outbreak The Associated Press MADISON, Wis. June 8 — Doctors initially feared a smallpox outbreak as they began seeing cases of a mysterious disease that has spread to at least 19 people who came into contact with pet prairie dogs in the Midwest, health officials said Sunday. The symptoms were alarmingly similar fever, chills, rashes and swollen lymph nodes, said Milwaukee's health commissioner, Dr. Seth Foldy. It was when the prairie dog connection surfaced that they knew it must be something else. "We asked the question but discounted it...

Monkeypox Virus Spreads Across Upper Midwest Officials Warn Public To Avoid Ill Prairie Dogs POSTED: 10:09 a.m. EDT June 9, 2003 Tests have confirmed that the disease that has sickened pet prairie dogs and numerous humans is the monkeypox virus. MONKEYPOX CDC Info.WHO Info.Guidelines For Vets, Pet Owners And it's spreading across the upper Midwest, causing an outbreak of rashes, fevers and chills in people. Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the prairie dogs likely were infected by a giant Gambian rat at a suburban Chicago pet distributor. Health officials have confirmed that four Wisconsin people...

Monkeypox virus underscores danger of having exotic pets Two new cases of illness confirmed By MARILYNN MARCHIONE and SARAH CARR mmarchione@journalsentinel.com Last Updated: June 8, 2003 The human monkeypox outbreak, likely spread by prairie dogs via imported African rats, is the latest example of a danger that health officials have warned of for years: Exotic pets often bring exotic health threats. Deadly infections, unusual injuries and people getting bored with or overwhelmed by owning such pets and releasing them into the wild have been reported, health and agriculture officials say. Importing super-exotic pets into the United States, such as Gambian...

Health officials are investigating at least 29 suspected cases of people in three Midwestern states who may have been stricken in the outbreak so far, which state and federal health officials are urgently working to contain. State and federal authorities are tracing about 200 animals that were distributed in 15 states by an exotic pet dealer in Illinois. The dealer sold rodents known as prairie dogs, which are believed to be the source of the outbreak. In addition to trying to prevent more infections, officials are worried that the animals could spread the disease to wild rabbits and other indigenous...