Hoping to halt the spread of the exotic monkeypox virus, state health officials spent Monday in an often-frustrating search for more than 100 people who bought animals from aVilla Park home-based business that sold dozens of prairie dogs believed to be infected with the disease.
Although the sellers had documentation on the transactions, investigators said many of the names or addresses cannot be found. Some animals have passed through several pet shops, making them difficult to trace, and some were sold at swap meets where paperwork is not always complete.
“We’re trying to stay ahead of it and remain aggressive, but at the same time we don’t want people to see that and overreact,” said Jeff Squibb, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Agriculture. “We are concerned, and we’re doing everything we can to stop the spread of the virus and eradicate it so it never happens again.”
State and federal health agencies said they were tracking 37 suspected cases as of Monday. Four people–three in Wisconsin and one in Illinois–had been confirmed by lab tests for the monkeypox virus. All have recovered.
Of the suspected cases, five are in Illinois, 19 in Wisconsin and 13 in Indiana, health officials said.
The cases are the first reported instances of monkeypox in the Western Hemisphere.
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Investigators believe the virus, normally found in Central and West Africa, may have come to the United States in an imported Gambian rat, an African rodent sold as a pet. Several of the rats were sold by a Texas animal dealer to Phil’s Pocket Pets in Villa Park. Officials suspect an infected rat passed the virus to prairie dogs, which then passed it to humans through a scratch or bite.
Although symptoms of the virus resemble those of smallpox, health officials say it is less serious, far less contagious and rarely fatal. Health officials say 1 percent to 10 percent of people infected with monkeypox in Africa die of the virus.
There is no known treatment for monkeypox, but a committee on immunization practices at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is studying whether people who have been vaccinated against smallpox may be protected from monkeypox, CDC officials said.
1 confirmed case in Illinois
The first known case in Illinois was Eric Stargardt, 24, who sometimes tends to the animals at Phil’s Pocket Pets.
Stargardt said he went to the doctor in late May thinking he had chickenpox after small red marks appeared on his neck and chest. He said he did not recall being bitten or scratched by an animal.
Stargardt, a Kane County resident, said he found the diagnosis “kind of amusing.” He said he has completely recovered. “I’m healthy,” he said.
Shari Moberley, who owns Phil’s Pocket Pets with her husband, Phil, said the couple first heard there may be problems with their prairie dogs when a Wisconsin dealer called in mid-May and said some of the animals she had sold him were ill.
Three days later, Phil Moberley said, he stopped selling prairie dogs after hearing a little girl who had been bitten by one of the animals had been hospitalized in Wisconsin with an unknown illness. Thinking the prairie dogs were infected with tularemia, a common rodent disease, he sent three of them to an Oklahoma lab for testing.
The results came back negative, but Moberley said he decided to err on the side of caution and euthanize the more than 70 prairie dogs that remained in the basement of his Villa Park home. By then, however, the Moberleys had already sold about 130 of the animals.
The Moberleys said they received prairie dogs and Gambian rats from a dealer in Texas who they declined to name. At the time, both the Moberleys and the Texas dealer thought the animals were healthy, Shari Moberley said.
“It was nobody’s fault,” she said. “It wasn’t our fault or the dealer’s fault.”
The Moberleys’ business has been quarantined until health officials are sure the remaining 578 hamsters, mice, hedgehogs, chinchillas and other animals have been tested and cleared of the pox.
Some officials said they were concerned that the virus could spread to other animals. One of the human cases in Wisconsin is thought to have arisen from a rabbit that was infected by a prairie dog.
In Illinois, investigators are focusing on six counties in which they know prairie dogs from the Villa Park pet business were sold. The counties are Cook, DuPage, Kane, McHenry, Grundy and Winnebago.
“Until you notify those people and find out whether their animals are sick or anyone in the household has shown symptoms, you can’t hope to control the disease,” Squibb said. “It becomes very time-consuming.”
State monitors 5 others
Besides Stargardt, Illinois officials are looking at four suspected monkeypox cases–all DuPage residents who had contact with a prairie dog obtained through a swap meet, said state epidemiologist Mark Dworkin. All four of those patients know each other or are family members, Dworkin said.
One of the patients remains hospitalized, Dworkin said, though he said none of them is seriously ill.
The state is also watching a DuPage veterinarian who had contact with an ill prairie dog but has not shown all the symptoms of monkeypox, he said.
In Wisconsin, officials say they have found 24 of the 28 prairie dogs sold to a distributor there by the Villa Park shop.
Mark Wegner, chief of the communicable disease epidemiology section at the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, said his office first received a report of a person being infected by a prairie dog on May 15 but did not suspect monkeypox.
It wasn’t until last week, Wegner said, when another person said they had become ill after contact with a prairie dog, that health officials became concerned. On Wednesday, lab results confirmed the presence of monkeypox, Wegner said.
Officials say people with sick prairie dogs should not take them to their veterinarians, where the virus could spread to workers or other animals. Instead, they advise people to isolate the animal at home, then call public health authorities. They also warn against releasing prairie dogs into the wild.
Scientists believe that people who have been vaccinated against smallpox may carry some protection against monkeypox, which has similarities to the smallpox virus. The U.S. stopped routine smallpox immunizations for infants in 1972.
“There certainly have been some animal studies that have been done, as well as some of the information that’s been gathered from the outbreaks that have occurred in rural Africa, that suggest there is some protective effect” of smallpox vaccine for monkeypox, said Dr. Stephen Ostroff, deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases.
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Monkeypox facts
Though less fatal than smallpox, monkeypox is a rare viral disease that comes from the same family of viruses.
Origin: Occurs primarily in the remote villages of Central and West Africa close to tropical rain forests; first discovered in 1970.
Symptoms: Fever, headaches, chills and sweating followed up to 10 days later by a rash similar to that of smallpox or chickenpox.
Treatment: No specific treatment; but the smallpox vaccine has been reported to reduce the risk.
Transmission: Usually transmitted to humans from squirrels and primates through contact with the animal’s blood or a bite. Officials suspect infected Gambian rats, which were sold to a Chicago-area pet dealer, passed the virus to prairie dogs.
Fatality: Ranges from 1 percent to 10 percent in Africa.
Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; World Health Organization
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