Viewing forum: Emerging Diseases — if you weren’t paranoid enough, check out this forum. Good reading for a month. The story below is typical:

Civic officials in this Himachal Pradesh capital are struggling to control a severe intestinal disease that has killed at least 30 monkeys.

Hundreds of other monkeys in the town, which is home to about 2,000 simians, are suffering from a severe form of gastroenteritis.

While civic authorities put the death toll at over 30, local newspapers said it could be twice as high at 70 dead in the last three weeks.

The animals have been rapidly losing weight, bleeding from the mouth and passing bloody stools.

“The Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) has diagnosed the disease as a severe form of gastroenteritis, which has taken the form of epidemic,” said Arun Sirkeck, a top veterinary doctor treating wild animals here.

“For the last three days, we are treating about 250 monkeys with antibiotics served with honey smeared bread and also in water. The drug (tetracycline) is mixed in the water and food,” Sirkeck told IANS Friday.

link from John Schumann