This is a tale of cuteness and folly; it’s about a furry animal, a potentially lethal virus, a man with two jobs, and a sinister intruder. The animal is the prairie dog; not a dog but a rodent, a short-tailed squirrel, that lives in burrows on the North American prairies; so cute that it is traded as a pet. The virus is the monkeypox virus, a member of the orthopoxvirus genus; it was first recognised as a cause of disease in captive primates in 1958 and the first cases of human monkeypox were reported from the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) in 1970. (The man and the sinister intruder? They will appear; I solicit your patience.)

Human monkeypox has occurred sporadically since 1970, but not outside Africa—until now. Between late May and late June 2003 (

; see also perspective article, ibid: 324–7) …