‘Monkeypox’ outbreakconfirmed in America

Nineteen people in three Midwestern states have become infected with the a monkeypox-like virus, marking the first outbreak of the life-threatening illness in the Western Hemisphere, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Human monkeypox is a rare disease related to smallpox. The disease occurs primarily in the rain forest countries of Central and West Africa.

All patients in the U.S. who have contracted the disease reported direct or close contact with sick prairie dogs. Seventeen of the cases occurred in Milwaukee, with one case each having been reported in Illinois and Indiana.

Prairie dog

Monkeypox is untreatable and health officials estimate the virus has a mortality rate of between 1 percent and 10 percent, compared with a mortality rate of about 30 percent for smallpox, according to the Washington Post.

Symptoms include fever, headache, cough and rash illness similar to, but less infectious, than smallpox.

The CDC has issued a nationwide alert to doctors and public health officials to be on the lookout for instances of rash illness associated with exposure to prairie dogs, Gambian rats and other animals.

”We have an outbreak,” said James Hughes, director of the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta. ”I’d like to keep it relatively small. I don’t want any more cases. We’re doing everything we can to try to contain this,” he told the Post.

About 30 prairie dogs that may have been infected were shipped from Texas to Illinois and then on to a Milwaukee animal distributor who sold them to pet stores and at a swap meet in Wausau, according to the Wisconsin Department of Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

The CDC says preliminary information suggests animals from the distributor may have been sold in several other states.

Of the 19 cases reported so far, four of the victims have been hospitalized; none has died, Hughes told the Post.

Because the disease has never been seen before in the Western Hemisphere, the severity of the threat is not completely clear. All patients and infected animals have been isolated – and pet shops and one house where the prairie dogs lived have been quarantined – to prevent spread of the disease, reports the Post.