Prairie Dogs May Be Source
Of Worldwide Disease Spread

CANADIAN, Texas — Warm, cuddly little prairie dogs, those furry critters that environmental activists want to put on the endangered species list, may be the cause of a contagious disease outbreak that could become worldwide.

Despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga., Texas health officials say an outbreak of tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, may have run its course in the Texas Panhandle. But the disease appears to have been exported.

Almost 20 dead rabbits and five dead squirrels were found over a three-month period this summer at the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area near Canadian.

The Center for Disease Control lab in Fort Collins, Colo., says the rabbits tested positive for tularemia, a bacterium that can threaten humans.

Dr. James Alexander with the Texas Department of Health in Canyon, says the disease has apparently run it course in the Panhandle.

Alexander says tularemia is fairly rare, but can infect about 250 species of animals, including humans.

If left untreated, there is a 30 to 60 percent chance of death for humans who contract one of the six forms of the disease. The disease is transmitted through infected animals, tick bites and airborne particles.

No human cases have been reported in the Texas Panhandle.

About the same time Alexander was saying the danger had passed in Hemphill County of the Texas Panhandle, CDC officials in Atlanta were issuing a warning that prairie dogs captured in Texas and South Dakota to be sold as pets may be the cause of outbreaks around the nation.

CDC officials say an outbreak began in mid-July around the country.

They say they tracked the source of the outbreak to prairie dogs that were caught in Texas and South Dakota and shipped from a distribution center near Denton, Texas, to pet stores around the world.

CDC officials say prairie dogs that might have been infected were shipped to Ohio, West Virginia, Florida, Washington, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas, Illinois and Virginia. Potentially infected prairie dogs were also shipped to Japan, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Thailand.

David Dennis, an epidemiologist with the CDC, says infected animals have been found in Texas, West Virginia and the Czech Republic.

The World Health Organization and the European Union Disease Surveillance Network have been notified.

Tularemia also is a potential bioweapon and is among the CDC's top six agents of concern, though this outbreak does not appear to be a bioterrorist attack.

The CDC says about 200 human cases of tularemia occur each year in the United States, and the disease usually is acquired by handling infected rabbits or being bitten by infected ticks.