Svalbard, an island group in the high Arctic which lies about 550 miles from the North Pole, is part of Norway. The mouse is believed to have arrived on Svalbard in the 1920s from eastern Europe, where it is common today. It lives mainly in a number of abandoned settlements, with its largest concentration in the Grumant area between Spitsbergen and the Russian settlement of Barentsburg. Both Norway and Russia continue to mine coal on Svalbard, and relations between the two nationalities are friendly. The mouse was found in 1999 to be host to a parasite, a tiny tapeworm, which in its adult phase lives in the small intestines of dogs, foxes and other canine species.
Animals acquire the parasite by eating the mice.
The eggs travel to the liver, hatch out, and can then cause cysts which are often fatal if not detected and removed. Health warning One of the two scientists on Svalbard found to be infected had been working with Arctic foxes. It can take up to 15 years for the disease to manifest itself. The director of the Norwegian universities' study centre on Svalbard, Lasse Loennum, has written to about 100 former students who had worked in the Grumant area since 1996, warning them of the risk and urging them to be tested. The head of environmental protection for the governor of Svalbard is Carl Erik Kilander.