My nephew recently deployed to Afganistan. So this is one more thing to worry about while he's there. Fresh from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: "If you were to list all the dangers faced by U.S. military personnel serving in Afghanistan, your list would be long, but would it include monkey bites? It should. The U.S. Army recently examined this risk and found that in just four months, 10 service members were bitten by monkeys. And there may have been more, unreported, bites. Most monkeys were pets owned by Afghan National Security Forces and Afghan civilians, so the risk of being bitten could increase as U.S. forces work more closely with these Afghan people. Monkey bites can spread rabies, tetanus or other bacterial infections, or B-virus infection to humans. Bites can be minimized by enforcing military policies that prohibit pet adoption and animal contact, and secondary infections can be reduced by providing better training to military health care providers on how to treat animal bites."

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