June 10, 2003
By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer
WAUSAU, Wis. - When a young family of three brought home two $95 prairie
dogs from a Mother's Day event, they never guessed the furry little
additions to their five-acre hobby farm could confine them to their home.
But that's just where Tammy Kautzer is biding her time with her husband
and 3-year-old daughter, quarantined after suffering a bout with suspected
monkeypox linked to the burrowing rodents.
"They said we can't leave until the scabs fall off the sores," said
Kautzer, 28, of nearby Dorchester in central Wisconsin. "I only have a few
more scabs to fall off. My daughter's are gone."
Health officials were working to contain the spread of the monkeypox
virus, which is related to smallpox and apparently never before found in
the Western Hemisphere.
The disease in humans is not usually fatal but causes rashes, fevers,
chills and sores.
In all, 33 cases of monkeypox are either suspected or have been confirmed
in three Midwest states. In Wisconsin, 16 cases are suspected and three
were confirmed; health officials have not identified who the confirmed
cases are.
Thirteen cases are suspected in Indiana. And in Illinois, there are four
suspected and one confirmed case.
Investigators say a shipment of prairie dogs likely was infected with the
virus by a giant Gambian rat, which is indigenous to Africa, at a
Chicago-area pet distributor, Phil's Pocket Pets. Federal and state health
officials were trying to track down 115 customers — both individuals and
pet stores — that bought animals since April 15 from the business.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could not say how many
people or animals may have come in contact with the virus.
The distributor, Phillip Moberley, said Monday that he voluntarily
quarantined his home-based business and has destroyed 70 prairie dogs. A
24-year-old employee of Moberley's was Illinois' confirmed monkeypox case.
In Wisconsin, state officials had accounted for two-thirds of the 30
prairie dogs shipped to the state and issued two more quarantines barring
people from moving mammals on their property to help stem the spread.
Health officials also issued an emergency order banning the sale,
importation and display of prairie dogs.
Eileen Whitmarsh, who fell ill after handling an infected prairie dog at
her suburban Milwaukee pet store, said at first one of the animals just
seemed fatigued. But then the symptoms spread to another prairie dog in
the store.
"Nobody knew. Everybody thought, 'Oh, just a prairie dog not feeling
well,'" Whitmarsh said.
Kautzer said she bought her two 6- to 8-week-old prairie dogs at a
Mother's Day event in Wausau for $95 apiece. Two days later, the eyes of
one crusted over and swelled up.
"I figured it had a cold," she said Monday in a telephone interview from
her home. By then, she said, the animal had bitten her daughter on the
finger.
Kautzer eventually took the animal to a veterinarian, who diagnosed a
swollen lymph node. Then her daughter began running a 103-degree fever —
and the prairie dog died May 20.
"I just threw it in the garbage. I didn't think nothing of it," Kautzer
said.
That day, she took her daughter to a doctor and mentioned the bite. "That
started a scare, especially since they found it had died," she said.
Health professionals had her retrieve the animal's body for testing.
By May 22, her daughter was admitted to a hospital; the child began
feeling better by the fourth day. The quarantine of the Kautzer home and
five-acre hobby farm was ordered last Friday.
The second prairie dog — named Chuckles — also got sick but is recovering
and is being kept in a pet carrier, she said. Health officials will decide
his fate.
"Why get rid of it because it caught something like we caught something?
It is not its fault that it caught it from a rat," Kautzer said.
___
On the Net:
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention:http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r030607.htm%und _off(%)
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection:
http://datcp.state.wi.us/index.jsp
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