SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2003


Farrah Little was attacked by spider monkeys in Nicaragua.

Attacked by a Rabid Monkey? Leave Central America Rápidamente!

BY LARRY SCHWARZ

Travelers who come to Central America are often advised to take certain precautions, such as getting a Hepatitis A vaccination or taking antimalarial drugs. But for Farrah Little, from Vancouver, Canada, it wasn't contaminated food or a mosquito bite that prematurely ended her journey - it was two maniacal spider monkeys.

Miss Little, 21, visited Honduras this year because she had an opportunity to work as a volunteer writer for Honduras This Week, and she thought it would be interesting to be immersed in a different culture. In her free time, she took several side trips to different places - including nearby Nicaragua.

"I had heard from various backpackers that it was a great place to travel," Miss Little said in an interview via email. "It's dirt-cheap, beautiful, friendly, and its history makes it a very interesting spot. Plus, it's not yet a backpacker's haven like Guatemala, which always makes a country more attractive to me."

At a family-run hostel in León, she met E'imear, a backpacker from Ireland. They decided to take a trip to Isla de Ometepe (Ometepe Island) in Lago de Nicaragua (Lake Nicaragua) - one of the nation's most popular destinations. Near the town of Mérida, they were able to get free access to a kayak, so they took it out onto the lake and rowed towards a place known locally as Monkey Island.

"When we got close enough to the island," Miss Little said, "we saw some cute monkeys and rowed nearer to get a better look.

"The water was getting way too rough for us, so we decided to try to turn the kayak around to head back to shore before things got too out of hand. Unlucky for us, the waves shoved us right towards a jutting rock where two male spider monkeys were frantically screeching at us. My end of the kayak ended up hitting the rock as we were trying to swing around, and the monkeys just suddenly grabbed me from above, taking hold of my head and left arm. From there they just bit into me like I was a piece of chicken meat."

Spider monkeys normally congregate in groups that range from 10-40; the group later divides into smaller sub-groups. Males are usually fearful of humans and are more likely to attack other male monkeys from outside the group. When they do attack, they have been known to scream, rattle branches, throw feces, and urinate on the intruders.

"At first I was too shocked to react quickly," Miss Little said, "but when I finally recovered my senses I started screaming and tried to push one of them away, which just angered them even more, and they took another bite into me. My friend, E'imear, then hit one with her paddle, which gave them a bit of a shock, and I managed to pull my arm away before we fell backwards into the lake."

The kayak sank, and eventually a boat came by and rescued them. Miss Little immediately realized that rabies was a potential problem, but since she was in the middle of nowhere - and in a third-world country - she knew it was going to be very difficult to get the proper medical assistance.

"After the attack, I was lucky that there was a trained paramedic hanging about the hostel who had all the necessary first aid supplies on hand," Miss Little recalled, "so he was able to clean the wounds and bandage my arm up.

"From there we had to hitch a ride in a pickup at night, to drive us two-and-a-half hours down an unlit, pot-holed, dirt road to the nearest town in the hopes that the clinic would be open, which it wasn't.

"We managed to track down the doctor, who came in and cleaned my arm up again, telling me to come back the next morning for the rabies shot. Of course, they ended up not having the vaccine on the island, so after various other complications I ended up heading back to Honduras."

Rabies is a virus not to be taken lightly. Although the incubation period is generally between one and three months, once symptoms begin to appear, it's always fatal. Only mammals carry the virus, and it's almost always transmitted through the saliva of a bite. Raccoons, skunks, bats, coyotes, dogs and cats should all be considered suspect. If someone is bitten, the most important thing to do is to clean the wound with soap and water, and get medical help as quickly as possible.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), early symptoms of rabies resemble the flu. Malaise, fever, or headache may last for days then progress to cerebral dysfunction, anxiety, agitation, and confusion. Ultimately, the infected person will suffer from insomnia, delirium, abnormal behavior, and hallucinations before death finally occurs.

While rabies is more common in Latin America than in North America, it still isn't an overwhelming problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in an eighteen-year period from 1980-1997, sixty-two cases of human rabies were reported in Honduras; twenty-nine cases were reported in Nicaragua. During the 1990's, in the United States, there was an average of one or two human rabies deaths per year.

People who are more likely to come into contact with rabies, such as veterinarians, sometimes get a pre-exposure vaccination. However, this precautionary measure does not actually prevent rabies. Instead, it buys an infected person a little more time to get the post-exposure vaccination, and it shortens the length of that treatment.

Several types of rabies vaccine are used around the world. Most developing countries use an older, less effective vaccine derived from nerve tissue. However, WHO strongly advises that the only post-exposure treatment received should be human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) and tissue culture derived vaccine. If it's not available, they suggest an infected person go to a location that has it.

At the Canadian Consulate in Tegucigalpa, Miss Little was directed to a doctor. He phoned around the country in an attempt to find the modern vaccine, but it wasn't available anywhere in Honduras. Since she was experiencing a low-grade fever, tingling around her wound bites, and exaggerated sensations down her arm, her doctor advised her to go home immediately.

With a little bit of effort, she managed to book a flight out of Honduras, and when she arrived in Vancouver, her aunt and uncle took her directly to the hospital. Since the vaccine wasn't in stock, the hospital had it shipped in; Miss Little's treatment began the following morning. During the following month, she received the five necessary injections, and by August 25, the treatment was finished.

People coming to Central America, or any region in the world where rabies is a problem, can benefit from Miss Little's misfortune. In retrospect, she acknowledges that she would have handled things a lot differently.

"I would have flown straight home to avoid all the trouble that happened after the incident," she said. "If you get into trouble, medical or otherwise, contact the embassy and fly elsewhere for any serious treatment."