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[2] Edwards County: cervid, human, suspected
Date: Thu 12 Aug 2010
From: Martin Hugh-Jones <promed@promedmail.org> [edited]
Yesterday morning, 11 Aug 2010, I had a call from a very sick cowboy who
was sitting in the Walmart parking lot in Dell Rio waiting to pick up his
prescription of doxycycline. He was worried and had been given my name. 4
weeks before he had shot an axis deer on an exotics ranch in Carta Valley
and skinned it. 10 days later he developed a vesicle on his right forearm;
the arm became inflamed, swollen, and painful; he was groggy and "sick";
and latterly a gland was painfully enlarged on the right side of his neck.
The original lesion wasn't painful but itched, and had begun to ulcerate.
He had gone to the emergency room at the town hospital but they sent him on
his way after taking a blood sample. I told him to pick up his prescription
immediately, start taking the pills, and go see his family doctor. From
what he said it was to me a presumptive cutaneous anthrax.
He said that he is a ranch hand on the Carta Valley ranch and that there
are plenty of biting flies on the ranch. It is a 2000 acre [809 ha] high
fenced ranch with exotic deer. As many as possible of these expensive
animals had been vaccinated earlier this year [2010]. The axis deer he
skinned had not appeared to be ill when shot. So if it is anthrax -- his
family doctor is "running tests" but is reluctant to put him on
ciprofloxacin until he has laboratory confirmation because of the risks
involved with that drug -- he would have got it from a fly bite from
sick/dead stock elsewhere in the valley.
We were out there 3 weeks ago visiting with ranchers and on various
wildlife ranches to the east and west of Carta Valley, sampling and GPSing
the dead deer and other species. Some mildly affected, others severely.
Some of these ranchers have expensive tastes in what they stock their
ranches with, whether or not the species are ecologically appropriate. From
what we were told and not told I suspect that some 20 deer and exotic
ranches in eastern Val Verde, Kinney, Edwards, and western Uvalde counties
have suffered anthrax cases this summer [2010] so far. A not untypical
scenario for the western half of the Edwards Plateau.
--
Martin Hugh-Jones
ProMED-mail Animal Disease Moderator
<promed@promedmail.org>
[2] Edwards County: cervid, human, suspected
Date: Thu 12 Aug 2010
From: Martin Hugh-Jones <promed@promedmail.org> [edited]
Yesterday morning, 11 Aug 2010, I had a call from a very sick cowboy who
was sitting in the Walmart parking lot in Dell Rio waiting to pick up his
prescription of doxycycline. He was worried and had been given my name. 4
weeks before he had shot an axis deer on an exotics ranch in Carta Valley
and skinned it. 10 days later he developed a vesicle on his right forearm;
the arm became inflamed, swollen, and painful; he was groggy and "sick";
and latterly a gland was painfully enlarged on the right side of his neck.
The original lesion wasn't painful but itched, and had begun to ulcerate.
He had gone to the emergency room at the town hospital but they sent him on
his way after taking a blood sample. I told him to pick up his prescription
immediately, start taking the pills, and go see his family doctor. From
what he said it was to me a presumptive cutaneous anthrax.
He said that he is a ranch hand on the Carta Valley ranch and that there
are plenty of biting flies on the ranch. It is a 2000 acre [809 ha] high
fenced ranch with exotic deer. As many as possible of these expensive
animals had been vaccinated earlier this year [2010]. The axis deer he
skinned had not appeared to be ill when shot. So if it is anthrax -- his
family doctor is "running tests" but is reluctant to put him on
ciprofloxacin until he has laboratory confirmation because of the risks
involved with that drug -- he would have got it from a fly bite from
sick/dead stock elsewhere in the valley.
We were out there 3 weeks ago visiting with ranchers and on various
wildlife ranches to the east and west of Carta Valley, sampling and GPSing
the dead deer and other species. Some mildly affected, others severely.
Some of these ranchers have expensive tastes in what they stock their
ranches with, whether or not the species are ecologically appropriate. From
what we were told and not told I suspect that some 20 deer and exotic
ranches in eastern Val Verde, Kinney, Edwards, and western Uvalde counties
have suffered anthrax cases this summer [2010] so far. A not untypical
scenario for the western half of the Edwards Plateau.
--
Martin Hugh-Jones
ProMED-mail Animal Disease Moderator
<promed@promedmail.org>