NEW YORK, Sep 02 (Reuters Health) -- Persons exposed to a rabid bear cub at an Iowa petting zoo and a one-day barnwarming may be at risk for rabies, warn federal health officials.
"An estimated 400 people from 10 states... and Australia had contact with the bear cub," according to a statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta, Georgia.
"The bear died Friday," Iowa Department of Health spokesman Kevin Teale told Reuters Health. "It was... only 5 or 6 months old, cute and cuddly, so guests at this petting zoo would play with it like you would a new puppy -- rub the tummy, let it nip on the hands, that sort of thing."
"Anybody who interacted with the bear after July 31st should talk to their physician," Teale said. "We understand that people had a habit of putting food in their mouth and the bear would take it. We've been told that people would put honey in their hands and the bear would lick it off. It would wrestle with somebody like a little puppy, nip at people or take the hand in its mouth. So the chance of exposure for some people may have been great."
The cub was part of Swenson's Wild Midwest Exotic Petting Zoo in Clermont, and also had been lent out for an August 14th barnwarming at the Tharp Barn in Holy Cross, Iowa, "where it reportedly nipped people," according to the CDC.
Officials estimate that about 400 visitors to the petting zoo were exposed to the bear. They say that "at the petting zoo, visitors fed, wrestled, and may have been nipped by the bear." Follow-up phone calls with visitors signing the zoo's register have led the CDC to speculate that approximately 150 of the 400 persons may have been exposed to the lethal rabies virus through contact with the bear's saliva. These individuals are advised to urgently seek medical attention, namely injections of rabies vaccine and rabies immune globulin.
The petting zoo was a run on the farm of Rick Swenson and his family, as a secondary source of income. Visitors to the farm signed a guestbook, which is the only record of who was in contact with the bear.
"The problem is that some of the entries in the guest book are somewhat cryptic. They'll just say 'two people from California,' or 'Bob from Illinois.' Or a child would have signed the guestbook, so we have a child's name and a hometown," said Teale.
"The bear was also taken to a community reception a couple of towns over during the period we believe it may have been infectious, and we have a guest list from that celebration," he added. "So we've been able to contact probably close to 90% or 95% of the people we think may have had contact with the bear. But this last 5% is going to prove to be difficult because of either the notes in the guest book, or the fact that not everybody who went to the zoo signed the guest book."
The exact name of the petting zoo is in doubt. "We've heard a couple different names for it so we've been referring to it as Swenson's Wild MidWest Exotic Petting Zoo. We think that covers most of the names people have heard it by," Teale said.
