Beware the Monkeys: Animal Bites Plague Troops in Afghanistan

War zones are risky places and not solely because of bullets, bombs, and other man-made weapons. U.S. soldiers also face the perhaps surprising danger of bites from animals, some exotic, that medics are not prepared to handle.

High on the list of offenders are monkeys that Afghan soldiers, civilians, and U.S. troops keep as pets. "We felt like this was an unrecognized risk," says Capt. Luke Mease, a medical investigator for the Army Health Clinic in Utah.

The Army started to look at animal bites in a different way in 2011, when 24-year-old Army Spc. Kevin Shumaker died of a case of rabies he contracted from a stray dog in Afghanistan. Shumaker had returned from Afghanistan to Fort Drum, N.Y., but eight months after the bite, he died in a hospital. It was the only rabies death reported in the United States during the entire year.

It appears that the numbers of animal bites that troops in Afghanistan have suffered has been undercounted since the start of hostilities in 2001. U.S. troops reported 643 animal bites across the nation between 2001 to 2011; half of those were dog bites, while the rest were cat, rat, and monkey attacks. But after news of Shumaker's death got around, the reports of attacks among U.S. soldiers rose. "We were surprised by the numbers," Mease says. Between September and December 2011, the Army reported 126 animal bites in eastern Afghanistan alone. Of these, 10 were from rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

"Bites from macaques can cause serious infections," Mease says. "Monkey bites can spread rabies, tetanus, or Herpes B virus to humans."

Mease says that most of the monkeys implicated in the attacks were pets owned by Afghan National Security Forces and Afghan civilians. But U.S. soldiers also adopt animals (including monkeys) as mascots, despite regulations that prohibit them. Protecting these animals is one reason the number of attacks are underreported, Mease says. "In talking to people overseas, my experience is that they are often protecting the mascot," he says. "The human?animal bond is a very strong thing."

Mease says the risk of animal bites rises as U.S. troops work closely with Afghan population. The number of troops in Afghanistan will shrink as the mission transitions to training and support, but the close contact with Afghans will mean more exposure to these pets.

And Army medics could be soon looking forward to primers on animal-attack treatments, including monkey bites. A new study of this problem, published in the October edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, notes that "treatment of monkey bites is not a standard part of U.S. medical education, so inadequate treatment could be due to insufficient training."

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/monkey-bites-plague-troops-in-afghanistan-12636466?src=rss

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