Health officials in Michigan had already banned shipments of all mice, hamsters and guinea pigs from Mid-South Distributors as the result of a 22-state advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta) indicating that rodents potentially infected with LCMV had been disseminated from the Ohio facility to pet stores throughout the country.

Michigan’s order prohibits the sale or display of rodents in pet stores that received animals from Mid-South Distributors as early as February. The ban includes rodents that shared cages, water bottles, food, bedding and toys with potentially infected animals. It also requires pet stores to clean and disinfect all cages or other holding areas, and take steps to prevent cross-contamination.

The order will be lifted when state health officials determine that no risk remains.

Elsewhere, more than 50 hamsters and guinea pigs acquired from the Ohio distribution facility were quarantined at the PetSmart in New Hartford, Conn.

Meanwhile, the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services quarantined Mid-South Distributors of Arkansas L.L.C. (Scott), which has common ownership with Mid-South Distributors of Ohio, and prohibited it from selling or distributing animals to pet stores and consumers. Health officials also ordered it to allow some of its animals to be tested for the virus.

The Ohio distribution facility let the CDC test its hamsters and guinea pigs after three New Englanders died after receiving organ transplants from a donor who owned a hamster traced to the distribution center.

The test results on animals from the Ohio facility showed that two hamsters, which had arrived from the Arkansas facility, were infected with LCMV. A third was found to have had the infection in the past. [October 2005 PET AGE]