WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18,2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 21
Can I get a 'P,' please?
Zach Straus/Kansan
A sign intending to read "handicapped" guards the entrance to the Dole Human Development Center parking lot, one of the many construction sites on campus. The construction to repair a segment of the University's tunnel system should be completed before the fall semester.
HEALTH
Monkeypox infects Leavenworth woman
By Maggie Newcomer
mnewcomer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The first Kansas case of the viral disease monkeypox was reported in Leavenworth Sunday. Monkeypox is similar to smallpox, though less fatal.
This month, the disease infected humans in the United States for the first time.
Sharon Watson, representative of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said the infected Leavenworth woman, who has not been identified, was expected to be released from St. John Hospital in Leavenworth yesterday.
The woman became ill after being bitten by a friend's pet prairie dog. Her friend, a 38-year-old Missouri man, also became ill but was never hospitalized.
State laboratories determined both cases to be monkeypox, Watson said. Samples have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for testing.
Watson said a Gambian giant rat carried monkeypox into the United States from Africa. She said the rat was housed in Illinois near 1,000 prairie dogs that were raised on a Kansas farm.The animals were then distributed to stores in Wisconsin and Indiana and sold as pets.
Robert Timm, curator of mammalogy at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, said the disease infected the prairie dogs through airborne transmission, meaning the rat and prairie dogs never came into direct contact.
Watson said the only way for humans to
contract monkeypox was through contact with an infected animal's bodily fluids. She said the CDC were tracking down all the prairie dogs that were infected in Illinois, but couldn't comment on the investigation's progress.
Myra Strother, chief of medical staff at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said only people who kept prairie dogs as pets were at risk of getting monkeypox.
Pet stores in Lawrence do not sell prairie dogs or Gambian rats therefore the CDC were not investigating these stores, Strother said.
Human symptoms of monkeypox include a fever of more than 99.3 degrees, coughing, shortness of breath and swollen lymph nodes. Symptoms in animals are missing patches of fur, rash and discharge from the eyes and nose.
Timm said although Gambian giant rats and prairie dogs are prized as exotic pets, it's a bad idea to keep them as pets. He said it was too difficult to care for them and they were more likely to bite.
“It's especially dangerous for little kids,” Timm said. “If they play too rough, they might be bitten.”
Watson said the CDC advised people who came in contact with prairie dogs to get a smallpox vaccine, which can defend against the virus. Watson said if the person was already infected, the smallpox vaccine was useless.
Strother said although it was unlikely any Lawrence residents would be infected, doctors at Watkins were prepared and knew the precautions to take.
—Edited by Saju Ng'alla
SCIENCE
Researchers limit effects of cow breath on ozone
The Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. — If you think you have bad breath, just be thankful you're not a cow with breath that actually harms Earth's ozone layer and contributes to global warming.
The collective breathing of cows accounted for nearly 20 percent of the methane gas released into the atmosphere. To cut down on the 100 to 150 gal-
lions of the gas that a typical cow accounts for each day, University of Nebraska researchers are developing an additive for cattle feed.
"The reason we're focusing on methane is because it's a short-lived, highly potent greenhouse gas that needs to be reduced," said Stephen Ragsdale, biochemistry professor.
The methane produced in a cow's rumen—the first of a cow's four stomachs
— gets into the bloodstream and exits through the lungs, said Ken Olson, a range livestock nutritionist at Utah State University. Almost all of it came from breathing, though tiny bits escaped when a cow belched, Olson said.
In Nebraska, it's been three years since Ragsdale and fellow researchers James Takacs and Jess Miner had the idea to reduce methane by blocking enzymes in the cow's rumen that were necessary to produce it.
Olson conducted a six-year study that found better range management practices that provided higher quality forage could make a small difference in the amount of methane released by cattle.
They have tested more than 200 compounds in the last 18 months, to find the formula that blocks the methane but doesn't harm the beneficial microbes in the cow's rumen.