Quote: By MEGGIE. I. FOSTER Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Busy and nerve-racking could only be the words to describe the month of June for the foreign animal disease (FAD) diagnostic team with the Indiana Board of Animal Health. Dr. Jodi Lovejoy, district 8 field veterinarian with BOAH, can attest since she heads up the FAD division for the agency and has been on the road for three different, quite serious cases, investigating, collecting tissue samples, consulting with livestock producers and protecting public and animal health.

Just another day on the job for Dr. Lovejoy.

The most interesting case and the one that had the Board of Animal Health in a bout of both shock and awe and the occasional burst of uncomfortable laughter was a Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis outbreak in southern Indiana.

Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis known as LCM or LCMV is a rodent-born viral disease that affects nearly five percent of the mice population. Humans exposed to fresh mice or rat urine, dropping and saliva can become quite ill, Lovejoy explained. While some humans do not show clinical symptoms, others show biphasic symptoms meaning that there are two phases of symptoms - the first is flu-like including chest pain and testicular pain. The second phase of symptoms includes meningitis, fever and severe headache. Lovejoy also added that pregnant women with LCM can spontaneously abort the fetus or the child will have birth defects and if the affected patient transplants an organ, the transplant recipient may become pass away, instantly.

The tip to an LCM case rang into BOAH’s office on May 2, when the agency was contacted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). “A very astute doctor noticed the symptoms for LCM, so he tested for it and sure enough … so he contacted the CDC right away,” she said.

After BOAH received the call, Dr. Lovejoy was on the road to southern Indiana the very same day the call came into the office. She found that the person affected with LCM worked at a commercial rodent production facility. The facility, which employed 52 works, was made up of four different buildings, housing a grand total of 156,000 adult mice and 13,500 adult rats, not including babies. The business produces, processes and packages live product and frozen product, much of which is contracted to exotic animal farms and zoos.

Dr. Lovejoy found that 13 of the facility’s employees were positive for LCM, nine reported that there were ill and six sought medical care.

She sampled a total of 1,820 mice and rats - 399 rats tested all of which were negative and 1,491 mice, 296 of which tested positive. There was an infection rate in the mice of 21 percent, determined Lovejoy. She quickly wrote a quarantine for each building, putting a halt on sales, production and packaging. Lovejoy, who worked closely with the owner of the facility, said that 20,000 to 30,000 mice and rat products were shipped per day, five days a week.

“This isn’t a common disease, so we weren’t sure how to proceed,” said Dr. Lovejoy, adding that six state and federal agencies were involved in the quarantine including Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Indiana Department of Health, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the county health department, the CDC and BOAH. “The agencies quickly worked together to develop a game plan.”

Lovejoy said that if all mice and rats be were to be depopulated in all four barns, the buildings would be cleared and disinfected, then BOAH would lift the quarantine on the facility.

“Luckily, they did all their own depopulating and disinfecting, it worked out well, they were the experts,” she said, adding that OSHA required the employees to wear coveralls, foot wear, a mask and hoodie. “It was a huge nightmare they had to go through. We’re talking about thousands of rats, and aisle after aisle of boxes of mice. They ended up handling the trays (that housed the mice) three to four times during disinfection and depopulation for thousands of rats and mice.”

Lovejoy added that all the mice and rats were buried and they burned the litter.

“When we went back for an inspection, we found 12 mice running loose,” she said. “I remember the manager telling me that they couldn’t get every mouse. I said you have no other choice. The feces, the litter, they are contaminating the facility. We advised them to poison the water and that seemed to remedy the situation. We lifted the quarantine on July 11.”

In addition to the BOAH investigation, Lovejoy mentioned that the local county health department is requesting the shipping records from the facility.

“So we’ll continue to examine how this infection started,” she said. Lovejoy, who worked in close contact with the facility’s owner, said that he estimated $750,000 worth of losses due to the quarantine and that it would cost $400,000 to repopulate.

“We can’t dream this stuff up,” said State Veterinarian Bret Marsh. “We’re just so fortunate to have such a great team here standing ready to deal with these kind of issues. And this is certainly a unique case – we’ve never seen anything like this.” 7/19/2012