Bid to stop spread of rare monkeypox virus

WHEN a young family of three brought home two $95 prairie dogs from a Mother’s Day event, they never guessed the furry little additions to their five-acre hobby farm could confine them to their home.

But that's just where Tammy Kautzer is biding her time with her husband and three-year-old daughter, quarantined after suffering a bout of suspected monkeypox linked to the prairie dogs, which are burrowing rodents.

"They said we can't leave until the scabs fall off the sores," said Ms Kautzer, 28, of nearby Dorchester in central Wisconsin. "I only have a few more scabs to fall off. My daughter's are gone."