United States officials said yesterday that they would distribute the smallpox vaccine to people exposed to monkeypox, as the number of suspected victims of the deadly virus rose to 54.
Officials at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, said the vaccine would be issued to veterinarians and health workers involved in the investigation to help them fight off the virus.
The Department of Health and Human Services also banned the importation of rodents from Africa and the movement of prairie dogs within the US.
With 54 suspected cases in four states - nine of them confirmed - the US is doing everything it can to contain the source.
There have been no reported fatalities yet from the first outbreak of monkeypox in the Northern Hemisphere, but mortality rates of up to 10 per cent have been seen with outbreaks of the disease in Africa.
Officials believe people were infected with the virus, previously seen only in Africa, by exotic pets.
The assumption is that the prairie dogs contracted the germ from an imported Gambian giant rat at an exotic pet store in suburban Chicago.
United States to distribute smallpox vaccine
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