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CNN Live Today
'Daily Dose'
Aired June 12, 2003 - 11:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: First West Nile Virus and now SARS and now monkeypox. What else is next? Our medical news correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here to explain what this is all about, and hopefully explain if there is any kind plan of attack by health officials, if they have something in place yet.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There is a plan of attack. Let's talk about the first one first, which is smallpox vaccinations, which I know sounds like of odd since we're talking about monkeypox. But health officials believe that a smallpox vaccination, if someone has been exposed to monkeypox can help them, possibly so they won't get so sick and so that they won't die. So smallpox vaccinations will be offered to a very small select group of people who health experts think have been exposed to monkeypox.
Now, let's talk about the second prong of attack, and that has to do with prairie dogs. I know it's not called prairie dog pox. However, prairie dogs is what has spread the monkeypox in this country. People have gotten it from these prairie dogs, which, believe it or not, people keep as pets. And the government is now trying to trace back where all these prairie dogs came from. There are about 54 possible cases of monkeypox in the U.S. It's believed that they all came from, or almost all of them, came from prairie dogs who were at a Texas facility, along with animals from Africa. So the African animals gave it to the prairie dogs, and the prairie dogs gave it to the people. Let's talk about how prairie dogs would give it to the people. '
What would happen is that an animal bite could spread monkeypox from a prairie dog to a person, or direct contact with the animal's lesion on the skin, or a bodily fluid.
Now something that's very important that health authorities were saying, if you suspect you have a prairie dog or another animal that has monkeypox, don't put the animal out in the forest. Don't just say, OK, go, because then that animal can infect other animals. You should call your veterinarian and should be dealt with.
HARRIS: All right, so what about the people that actually have it. What kind of signs should they be looking up for? Are there symptoms that show up before it actually gets full-blown in your body?
COHEN: Yes, there are symptoms they should look for, and the symptoms will appear in the animals, as well as in the human beings. Let's take a look at a list of those symptoms. It would be fever, cough, headache, muscle aches, rash and enlarged lymph nodes.
HARRIS: That would be on a human.
COHEN: I know that some people are thinking, well, gosh, a lot of people have those kind of symptoms. How do you know if it's monkeypox? The rash is very different. What you think of a rash as usually being. It sort of looks like these little lesions, and second of all, you would have had some kind of contact with an animal like, for example, with a prairie dog. So that's how you would know. That's what sets it apart.
HARRIS: All right, and, you know, will this stay localized, do you think, or blow up and get all over like SARS, or what?
COHEN: The CDC believes it's not going to be like SARS for two reasons. One is that people with monkeypox tend to get pretty sick, and so they're probably not going to be traveling around. Second of all, monkeypox does not spread easily from human being to human being, so that people probably aren't going to fly around the world and give it to each other in the same way that that happens with SARS.
HARRIS: All right, good deal. Thanks, appreciate the primer on monkeypox. Boy, what's next?
COHEN: Just wait and see.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 12, 2003 - 11:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: First West Nile Virus and now SARS and now monkeypox. What else is next? Our medical news correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here to explain what this is all about, and hopefully explain if there is any kind plan of attack by health officials, if they have something in place yet.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There is a plan of attack. Let's talk about the first one first, which is smallpox vaccinations, which I know sounds like of odd since we're talking about monkeypox. But health officials believe that a smallpox vaccination, if someone has been exposed to monkeypox can help them, possibly so they won't get so sick and so that they won't die. So smallpox vaccinations will be offered to a very small select group of people who health experts think have been exposed to monkeypox.
Now, let's talk about the second prong of attack, and that has to do with prairie dogs. I know it's not called prairie dog pox. However, prairie dogs is what has spread the monkeypox in this country. People have gotten it from these prairie dogs, which, believe it or not, people keep as pets. And the government is now trying to trace back where all these prairie dogs came from. There are about 54 possible cases of monkeypox in the U.S. It's believed that they all came from, or almost all of them, came from prairie dogs who were at a Texas facility, along with animals from Africa. So the African animals gave it to the prairie dogs, and the prairie dogs gave it to the people. Let's talk about how prairie dogs would give it to the people. '
What would happen is that an animal bite could spread monkeypox from a prairie dog to a person, or direct contact with the animal's lesion on the skin, or a bodily fluid.
Now something that's very important that health authorities were saying, if you suspect you have a prairie dog or another animal that has monkeypox, don't put the animal out in the forest. Don't just say, OK, go, because then that animal can infect other animals. You should call your veterinarian and should be dealt with.
HARRIS: All right, so what about the people that actually have it. What kind of signs should they be looking up for? Are there symptoms that show up before it actually gets full-blown in your body?
COHEN: Yes, there are symptoms they should look for, and the symptoms will appear in the animals, as well as in the human beings. Let's take a look at a list of those symptoms. It would be fever, cough, headache, muscle aches, rash and enlarged lymph nodes.
HARRIS: That would be on a human.
COHEN: I know that some people are thinking, well, gosh, a lot of people have those kind of symptoms. How do you know if it's monkeypox? The rash is very different. What you think of a rash as usually being. It sort of looks like these little lesions, and second of all, you would have had some kind of contact with an animal like, for example, with a prairie dog. So that's how you would know. That's what sets it apart.
HARRIS: All right, and, you know, will this stay localized, do you think, or blow up and get all over like SARS, or what?
COHEN: The CDC believes it's not going to be like SARS for two reasons. One is that people with monkeypox tend to get pretty sick, and so they're probably not going to be traveling around. Second of all, monkeypox does not spread easily from human being to human being, so that people probably aren't going to fly around the world and give it to each other in the same way that that happens with SARS.
HARRIS: All right, good deal. Thanks, appreciate the primer on monkeypox. Boy, what's next?
COHEN: Just wait and see.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
