Editorial
Desk
| June 11, 2003, Wednesday
The
Monkeypox Warning
(NYT) 379 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A ,
Page 30 , Column 1
ABSTRACT
- Editorial on monkeypox outbreak; questions
adequacy of nation's defenses against animal
diseases; cites lack of federal regulation
of trade in exotic animals The outbreak of
monkeypox in individuals who have handled
exotic pets in the Upper Midwest and
Northeast poses little danger to the general
population -- there is no evidence it has
spread from one human to another. But if it
is not contained, the disease could become
rooted in animal populations in this
country. That could lead to periodic
outbreaks like the one the United States is
experiencing now or, even worse, the disease
could mutate and become easily transmissible
among humans. The episode has raised
troubling questions about the adequacy of
the nation's defenses against imported
animal diseases. Most of all, it raises
warning flags about the sale of exotic wild
animals for pets.
So far some 50 people in Wisconsin,
Indiana, Illinois and New Jersey have come
down with symptoms consistent with
monkeypox: blisterlike rashes, fever,
swollen glands, dry coughs and headaches.
Laboratory tests have confirmed that several
were definitely infected with the monkeypox
virus, a weaker and less contagious cousin
of smallpox. Most of these people had direct
contact with infected prairie dogs or, in at
least one case, with a rabbit that
apparently got the disease from an infected
prairie dog. The prairie dogs themselves may
have been infected by a Gambian giant
pouched rat imported from Africa, where
monkeypox has long existed.
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