Monkeypox Outbreak Highlights Potential Risks of Owning and Handling Exotic Pets, Wild Animals, and Birds.Health/Medical Writers BIOWIRE 2K LARCHMONT, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 2003 In the United States there is a growing trend towards a variety of exotic pets: ferrets, hedgehogs, sugar gliders, chinchillas, foxes, coyotes, squirrels, numerous reptiles, and even skunks. The recent outbreak of monkeypox in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois with one incident in New Jersey illustrates the danger of zoonoses Zoonoses Infections of humans caused by the transmission of disease agents that naturally live in animals. People become infected when they unwittingly intrude into the life cycle of the disease agent and become unnatural hosts. - diseases caused by agents that infect both humans and other animals. This first occurrence of monkeypox infection in humans in the Western hemisphere is probably due to pet prairie dogs and Gambian giant rats, according to the Centers for Disease Control. "The simplest advice, especially for parents of young children, is to use common sense and only keep domestic animals since the behavior of wild animals WILD ANIMALS. Animals in a state of nature; animals ferae naturae. Vide Animals; Ferae naturae. is unpredictable. For the exotic pet purchaser, an age-old Latin phrase seems especially relevant: Caveat emptor [Latin, Let the buyer beware.] A warning that notifies a buyer that the goods he or she is buying are "as is," or subject to all defects. When a sale is subject to this warning the purchaser assumes the risk that the product might be either defective or - 'Let the buyer beware'!!" according to the Editor-in-Chief of Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases, Stephen Higgs, Bs.C., Ph.D., FRES FRES Future Rapid Effect System (UK ground forces program) FRES Federation of Recruitment and Employment Services (UK) FRES Forest Range Environmental Study FRES Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (Department of Pathology, Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, Sealy Center for Vaccine Development and WHO Collaborating Center for Tropical Diseases, UTMB UTMB University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston). Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com/vbz), the only medical journal specifically devoted to such diseases. "If you must have an exotic pet, I would recommend that you only purchase captive-bred animals and not buy animals captured from the wild," says Dr. Higgs. "In the past we thought that new diseases usually emerge as the result of human encroachment into wild areas, but it now seems that we are providing new opportunities for these infectious agents by bringing them into our urban environment, and even into our homes. The recent emergence of SARS from civet civet (sĭv`ət) or civet cat, any of a large group of mostly nocturnal mammals of the Old World family Viverridae (civet family), which also includes the mongoose. cats traded in Asia and now monkeypox from prairie dogs is a clear illustration that there are still unknown agents that can infect humans and we do not fully appreciate the risks that these pose to ourselves and our children." Anthrax, rabies, and Ebola may be the most well known and feared of zoonotic diseases, but there are a plethora of others that can be contracted from a wide variety of species. Cat-scratch disease, hantaviruses, leptospirosis leptospirosis (lĕp'təspīrō`sĭs), febrile disease caused by bacteria of the genus Leptospirae. The disease occurs in dogs, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and horses and is transmissible to humans. , Lyme disease, salmonella, typhus typhus, any of a group of infectious diseases caused by microorganisms classified between bacteria and viruses, known as rickettsias. Typhus diseases are characterized by high fever and an early onset of rash and headache. , and numerous parasitic diseases are amongst the many that can be transferred from wild animals and birds to humans. The potential for such diseases to spread is well illustrated by West Nile virus West Nile virus, microorganism and the infection resulting from it, which typically produces no symptoms or a flulike condition. The virus is a flavivirus and is related to a number of viruses that cause encephalitis. , which since its introduction to New York in 1999, has spread to all but four mainland states. Thousands of avian, equine, and human cases have occurred in just four years, with 284 human deaths last year alone. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, such as Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Strategy, Practice and Science (www.biosecurityjournal.com) and Viral Immunology. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.'s biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 60 journals, books, and newsletters is available at www.liebertpub.com. |
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