June 18, 2003

The New Normal

Pet Problems

We have met the enemy, and he is ours. Really. We bought him at a pet shop. When monkeypox, a disease usually found in rodents of the African rain forest, suddenly turns up in kids in the American Midwest via their pet prairie dogs, it's hard not to wonder if species-hopping diseases are homing in on human beings. SARS (news - web sites) is one such plague; so is HIV (news - web sites). By the end of last week, there were 54 monkeypox cases in four states. The virus is a close but less deadly and contagious relative of the smallpox virus; it generally causes a rash and fever, and so far those infected are doing well. Monkeypox is rare. But we live--and die--with hundreds of more common species-hoppers, ranging from roundworms to influenza. "Most of the infections we think of as human infections started in other animals," says Stephen Morse, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Indeed, conditions are increasingly ripe for transmission, says Morse, as people encroach on more wild areas and animals. A paper published last week in Science suggests HIV came from two different African monkey viruses that combined when the monkeys were eaten by the same chimpanzees. Viruses evolve rapidly by exchanging genetic material in these situations. Then people were exposed to the chimps and acquired the combined virus--and the first cases of AIDS (news - web sites). Handling or slaughtering rare animals, like the civet cats implicated in SARS, can also spread germs to new hosts.

Everything I'm reading seems to indicate us coming back to a time when infectious disease running through our population is the norm, like it was in our parents and grandparents time. I wonder how this will change how we live our lives?

Anyone read Connie Willis' great book "Doomsday Book"? In her near future, pandemics were a part of everyday life. Well worth a read if you haven't had the pleasure.

Posted by Ithildin at June 18, 2003 5:26 PM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHE