Pig Ebola Not Expected to Impact Rhyme
Dec 21st, 2008 by MPC Press
A strain of the Ebola virus was discovered in dead pigs in the Philippines. According to the Wall Street Journal, health officials have stated that this strain of the virus, known as the Reston strain, has never caused human illness or death. Given that this issue was just made public last week, we at MPC were relieved as Rhyme and the other pigs in “Rhyme” are likely unaffected by the virus. (The newly published children’s book, Rhyme, was in fact sent to the printer in September.) However, we have now learned that the Philippine government waited until December 10 to make the presence of the Ebola Reston virus public, even though “pig farmers in three provinces near Manila began noticing high rates of sickness and death among their livestock as early as May,” according to the Wall Street Journal. We are very concerned about this delayed reaction. One would consider our pig characters safe, as the text of Rhyme was actually finalized in April, before the first signs of the virus were discovered. Even so, many of the pig illustrations were not completed until August, leading to the risk that some of the pigs in our story were indeed infected by the virus. The illustrator of Rhyme, Erin Gennow, confirmed that she has not traveled to the Philippines. This does make us more comfortable about her pigs, but the Ebola Reston virus is actually transmitted by air (hopefully Philippine pigs have not been anywhere near Erin’s domestic pigs). It is certainly possible that the book is in peril and we will evaluate the situation more closely in coming weeks. In terms of actual book sales, we have noticed no decline in Philippine orders. This may be due to the fact that there have not been any orders in the Philippines to date. U.S. orders have actually accelerated, likely because of higher levels of interest in anything pig-related. Or, increased volume may perhaps stem from holiday gift giving.
