A woman was hospitalized Sunday in Leavenworth with what may be the state’s first case of monkeypox, Kansas Department of Health and Environment officials said Monday.

The woman was not identified. She became ill after being bitten by a prairie dog June 1 while visiting a man in northwest Missouri, KDHE spokeswoman Sharon Watson said.

“She’s actually doing pretty well,” Watson said. “She came down with symptoms on June 10 and later visited a doctor.”

Officials said the woman was in fair condition at St. John Hospital in Leavenworth.

The 38-year-old Missouri man the woman visited also became ill last week with what was thought to be that state’s first case of monkeypox.

“He was never hospitalized and is recovering,” said Nancy Gonder, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

Though initial tests on both victims indicate monkeypox, samples are being sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for final analysis.

If confirmed, they would be the among the first cases of monkeypox outside Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois. Seven residents of Wisconsin have contracted the disease, as have four each in Indiana and Illinois.

Monkeypox, a West African disease not previously seen in the Western Hemisphere, is similar to smallpox but not as lethal and less infectious in humans. It is spread to humans by infected animals.

¢Centers for Disease Control on Monkeypox

Recent cases in the United States have been attributed to prairie dogs. Federal health officials think the disease was introduced when prairie dogs at Phil’s Pocket Pets in Villa Park, Ill., were infected by a Gambian giant rat that carried the disease from Africa. Missouri officials said the Missouri man recently purchased the suspected prairie dog from Phil’s Pocket Pets.

The man had two prairie dogs. The animal that bit the woman so far shows no symptoms of the disease, health officials said. The second animal, however, has died.

In Lawrence, city ordinance prohibits keeping prairie dogs or Gambian rats as pets.

Heidi Habiger, a manager at Pet World, 711 W. 23rd St., said the store had never sold prairie dogs nor Gambian rats and had never received any requests for them.

The Lawrence Humane Society has never been called upon to handle prairie dogs or Gambian rats, director Midge Grinstead said.

Monkeypox is rarely transmitted by person-to-person contact, Watson said.

Nevertheless, three relatives of the woman hospitalized in Leavenworth have been contacted by health officials, who recommended they receive the smallpox vaccine, which can prevent monkeypox.

“Once infected, the vaccine doesn’t do any good,” Watson said.

State health officials said last week some of the prairie dogs at Phil’s Pocket Pets originally were sold by an animal dealer in Meade, in southwest Kansas. The animals were not infected while they were in Kansas, but state and federal officials have banned the sale or transportation of prairie dogs as a precaution.