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"This is a virus that we simply don't have a lot of
information about," Dr. Steve Ostroff of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention told a news conference Monday.
The virus is called monkeypox, though the name is misleading.
Though it was first observed in African monkeys in 1958, it was
probably carried here fairly recently by one exotic rodent — a giant
Gambian rat — flown to the United States to be sold as a pet.
The rat in turn infected prairie dogs owned by a pet dealer.
Doctors believe people got sick from handling the prairie dogs.
"I think it's very important that we keep our guard up in terms
of watching for cases," said Ostroff, "both over the short term as
well as the longer term."
Most ‘Emerging Diseases’ Come
From Animals
This case illustrates something that doctors have long known —
that animal diseases probably cause most of the microbes that infect
human beings. A Scottish study reported that 61 percent of human
infectious diseases originated with animals, as do 75 percent of all
"emerging diseases" — the ones that have appeared recently.
Some examples:
 The
first human AIDS cases may have been transferred from chimpanzees.
West
Nile virus moved from birds to mosquitoes to people. It is now found
in 44 states.
SARS,
sudden acute respiratory syndrome, may have come from civets, a
breed of wild cat, in China's Guangdong province.
Even
measles may have been transmitted from animals 5,000 years ago.
"Remember, we're not the dominant life form on Earth," said Dr.
Daniel Shapiro, an associate professor of medicine at Boston
University. "Bacteria and other infectious agents are, really.
"Because this is novel, it's something we haven't really heard
about," said Shapiro. "For a lot of people this is very, very
scary."
The good news, says the CDC, is that monkeypox does not seem to
be terribly dangerous or very efficient at passing from one person
to another. All the suspected victims so far came in direct contact
with infected animals, and in some cases were bitten by them.
The bad news is that in a global economy with a growing
population, it is getting easier and easier for exotic diseases to
travel great distances. |
