US health officials on Sunday were investigating the first outbreak in the Western hemisphere of the "monkeypox" virus, a smallpox-like disease spread by rodents and monkeys that rarely is fatal in humans and may have infected at least 28 people in three Midwest states.
Federal and state health officials were trying to find out why 17 people in Wisconsin, 10 in Indiana and one in Illinois became sick with symptoms such as fever and rashes following contact with sick Gambian rats and prairie dogs. No one in the US has died from the illness.
Prairie dogs are wild rodents that dig and live in holes on the western US plains, and are sometimes kept as pets or traded by North American animal dealers.
The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control said on Sunday that laboratory tests have virtually confirmed the US outbreak of monkeypox, a rare viral disease that is found mainly in central and West African rain forests where primates flourish. Animals susceptible to the disease also include rabbits and some rodents.
"We feel pretty certain now that it is monkeypox," Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the deputy director of the national center for infectious diseases, said in an interview.
He said monkeypox is virtually unknown outside of Africa and has never before been found in the Western hemisphere.
The symptoms in people are similar to smallpox although monkeypox is less infectious and is seldom fatal, the CDC said. Doctors should look for rashes, fever, enlarged lymph nodes and other symptoms in people who have been in contact with prairie dogs or Gambian giant rats in the last three weeks, it said.
Three people thought to be infected in Wisconsin and one in Indiana remained in hospitals, the Chicago Tribune said in its Sunday editions. The ill person in Illinois was not hospitalized, the Illinois Department of Public Health said.
Ostroff said the number of cases of the disease reported in the US could rise now that the public has been told about the virus and people are on alert for symptoms.
The Indiana Department of Health on Sunday said it was investigating 10 human cases and 31 people or businesses in the state that may have been exposed. That figure was up from only one human case in Indiana reported by the CDC on Saturday.
A pet dealership called Phil's Pocket Pets in a suburb of Chicago has been quarantined after the person in Illinois suspected of having the disease reported close contact with exotic animals at the facility, the Illinois agency said.
Health officials were investigating if the virus may have been spread when prairie dogs and an ill Gambian giant rat were obtained from the Illinois dealership by a Milwaukee, Wisconsin animal distributor. The distributor last month sold prairie dogs to two pet shops in the Milwaukee area and to others at an event in Wisconsin where dealers exchange exotic pets.
"Preliminary information suggests that animals from this distributor may have been sold in several other states," the CDC said.
In the past, most monkeypox cases in humans were in remote African villages close to tropical rain forests where there is frequent contact with infected monkeys and other animals.
Ostroff said little is known about the spread of the disease but it is conceivable that it could infect rodent-type pets such as gerbils or hamsters. The World Health Organization said monkeypox is usually transmitted to humans through contact with an animal's blood or by a bite.
US health officials said anyone reporting illness associated with exposure to small rodents should immediately report to public health authorities.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not