Flu epidemic killing bonobos in Congo sanctuary

[Shiloh]

Source: http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0329-hance_bonobos.html

Flu epidemic killing bonobos in Congo sanctuary
Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
March 29, 2009

Six bonobos, a species of chimpanzee, have died from a flu epidemic in a month at the Lola Ya Bonobo in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Ten more have contracted the flu.

?There is no fever. Antibiotics don?t do anything. The bonobos have severe respiratory infections and then they can?t breath for 3 days then they die,? writes a staff member on the sanctuary's blog through the conservation organization WildlifeDirect. The staff of Lola Ya Bonobo have sent out a plea for help and donations, as the flu continues to sweep through their center.

Located in sixty acres of forest, the Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary is a place for bonobos who have been confiscated by police following attempts to sell them to pet markets in the US, Europe, or Middle East. The sanctuary provides rehabilitation for the bonobos and educates the local populace about the apes in an effort to curb hunting bush meat, one of the major threats to bonobos and apes across Africa. The center eventually hopes to reintroduce some of the bonobos back into the wild.

Bonobos are smaller than Common chimpanzees. They also sport pink lips and a black face. Behaviorally, bonobos are quite different from common chimpanzees. Whereas common chimpanzees live in patriarchal groups, bonobo groups are dominated by females. They are less violent than chimpanzees and do not engage in warfare like common chimpanzees. In addition, bonobos are famous for their sexual openness, including using sexual activity as a greeting and a way of mitigating conflict.

Bonobos are listed as endangered by IUCN's Red List. Only found in the DRC estimates of their population vary widely, from 5,000 to 50,000 individuals. Bonobos are threatened by habitat loss, deforestation, the pet trade, the bushmeat market, and even for use in witchcraft.

For WildlifeDirect Conservation Organization: http://wildlifedirect.org/

Lola Ya Bonobo blog: http://lolayabonobo.wildlifedirect.org/

For Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary website: http://www.friendsofbonobos.org

[Shiloh]

Re: Flu epidemic killing bonobos in Congo sanctuary

Another respiratory illness about chimps in the US:
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/us...MPSQU_BRF.html

Illinois: Sick Chimps Quarantined
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 27, 2009

Keepers at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago had six ailing chimpanzees in quarantine and under close observation after the recent death of another chimp from a mysterious respiratory illness. Kipper, a 9-year-old and the youngest member of a group headed by a male chimp named Hank, died Tuesday in the zoo hospital, where he had been taken a day earlier. A zoo spokeswoman, Sharon Dewar, said Kipper and the others six developed flulike symptoms last week. “We are guessing it’s a virus, but we don’t really know exactly what it is,” Ms. Dewar said. Because the illness appears contagious, the surviving six chimps were being kept in isolation from all other chimps and gorillas that live in the zoo’s Regenstein Center for African Apes.

[Shiloh]

Re: Flu epidemic killing bonobos (chimpanzees) in Congo sanctuary

Source: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lo...blic-of-congo/

Bonobo Outbreak: Update from Democratic Republic of Congo

Yesterday I passed on some grim news about a virus sweeping through bonobos. Some readers had questions, such as whether there was a quarantine and exactly what sort of virus is on the attack. Vanessa Woods kindly sent this email just now from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The most important thing at the moment for us is to protect the bonobos for the release project. these bonobos are in complete quarantine, and only select members of staff go in and out. so again NO RELEASED BONOBOS HAVE GOT THE FLU. they are in an entire separate part of the sanctuary with no contact with sick bonobos and they rarely see people. Claudine has had them in quarantine for 6 months with these procedures in place, not just for the flu, but for other dieases as well. there have been 5 health checks and ALL the bonobos in the sanctuary have been vaccinated for all diseases recommended by IUCN. obviously they need a flu vaccine and we are working on it.

for the rest, we only have two enclosures and a night building. at the first sign of a cough or a runny nose, we keep the bonobo isolated in the night building. both to keep an eye on the bonobo, and to protect the other bonobos. the problem is, the virus is just too fast. unlike a zoo, or a biomedical laboratory, the bonobos are free to range around a huge forest in the day time. they disappear at about 8 in the morning, and show up at 11 and 4pm to eat, then at 7pm to sleep.

the only time we can really separate them is first thing in the morning then when they come into sleep. and the virus is just too fast. a bonobo who is fine in the morning can be almost falling over by the afternoon. if we lock the bonobos inside all day, then it makes contamination that much faster. everyone disinfects their hands all the time, they change clothes and shower both in the morning when they arrive and before they leave in the afternoon. apart from this, with the short fall in the budget this year, there?s no money and no time to organise more equipment or another emergency enclosure. we?re all just fighting it as best we can with what we?ve got.

We?ve had some people freak out that this is a virus called H5N1 which is fatal to humans, but it?s not. it??s not ebola or bird flu or any other disease lethal to humans. and we know that b/c the keepers have been getting sick from the bonobos, they get the flu and they are over it in 24 hours. It happens once every couple of years that a flu goign round kinshasa in jan/ feb hits the bonobos in march. bonobos, we think, have a much lower immune system than people, which is why the kinsahsa virus that lasted for 24 hours in humans, is so much more severe than bonobos. we think it is human respiratory syncytial virus , again non fatal to humans, but we?re not sure.

[Shiloh]

Re: Flu epidemic killing bonobos (chimpanzees) in Congo sanctuary

Followup to the sick Illinois chimps...
Source: http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2...led-chimp.html


Zoo pinpoints illness that killed chimp
April 3, 2009 1:56 PM |

A mysterious infection that led to the death of a 9-year-old male chimpanzee at Lincoln Park Zoo last week has been identified as a respiratory virus that causes at least 15 per cent of the common colds suffered by humans worldwide every year.

Kipper, the chimp who died February 24 in the zoo hospital, was the youngest member of a 7-member family headed by the male chimp Hank. Since his death, the zoo veterinary staff has been trying to identify the illness that befell all seven members of the chimp group he lived with beginning February 19.

"It is a human virus," Steve Thompson, the zoo's vice president of conservation programs, said at a press conference held Friday in the Regenstein Center for African Apes that houses Lincoln Park's chimpanzee and gorilla collection.

The virus was identified, Thompson said, as hMPVcq. hMPV [human metapneumovirus], known to cause pneumonia, bronchiolitis and flu-like illness. Human children are most vulnerable to it, he said, with wide-ranging studies in human populations showing that about 98 percent of all human children have been exposed to hMPV by age ten.

While all seven members of the chimp group headed by Hank, an 18-year-old male, fell ill, only Kipper, an adolescent, died. Friday, the rest of the group, still recovering, returned from a two-week stay in the quarantine area in the ape house basement to go back on public display again.

How the chimps, which suffer the same respiratory ailments as humans, contracted the virus is a question that probably will never be answered, said Thompson.

"It could have been passed on from one of our staff, but that is highly unlikely," he said, noting how zoo staff wear facemasks, gowns gloves and sterilized footwear when they are in direct contact with the animals.

[Laidback Al]

Re: Flu epidemic killing bonobos (chimpanzees) in Congo sanctuary

INFLUENZA, CHIMPANZEE - DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: SUSPECTED, REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
***********************************************
A ProMED-mail post
<http: www.promedmail.org="">
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases <http: www.isid.org="">

Date: Thu 2 Apr 2009
Source: New Scientist [edited]
<http: www.newscientist.com="" blogs="" shortsharpscience="" 2009="" 04="" bonobo-outbreak.html="">


A deadly outbreak of what appears to be flu is threatening a group of bonobos in a sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) [picture at <http: www.primates.co.uk="" bonobos="" bonobos-sexual.jpg="">].

Known also as pygmie chimpanzees, bonobos live exclusively in the DRC and are listed as endangered on the IUCN red list. Researchers put their total numbers somewhere between 29 500 and 50 000.

"Three days ago, there were 10 bonobos face-down in the building, breathing really hard," says Vanessa Woods, a bonobo researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who is currently at the sanctuary. "We've never seen anything like it before."

At least 4 animals have died from the illness out of a total of 60 living in Lola Ya Bonobo reserve. The 40-hectare forest sanctuary is just outside of the capital city of Kinshasa and houses bonobos orphaned by the bush meat trade.

A flu outbreak raced through the human population of Kinshasa in February 2009, and Woods suspects sanctuary visitors spread the illness to the animals. "They get 30 000 Congolese visitors a year, and most of them are school children," she says.

Scientists studying wild chimpanzees in Cote d'Ivoire's Tai National Park have documented disease outbreaks there, including a respiratory illness likely acquired from humans.

As a result, researchers at Tai now keep their distance from chimpanzees and wear face masks to contain the spread of pathogens.

The bonobo sanctuary's animals are isolated from wild populations, so there is no chance the disease will spread, Woods says.

She and her colleagues have quarantined some sick animals and are keeping a close eye on the rest. "The worst seems to have passed, but you just don't know."

[Byline: Ewen Callaway]

--
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail


[Bonobos (_Pan panicus_), similarly to the Common Chimpamzee (_Pan
troglodytes_) are members of the hominidae family and as such share with humans common pathogens.

More information on this outbreak would be greatly appreciated.

For the interactive HealthMap/ProMED-mail map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with links to other recent ProMED-mail postings in surrounding areas, see <http: healthmap.org="" r="" 008z="">. - Mods.AS/MPP]

[see also:
2006
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Chimpanzee die-off - Tanzania (Kigoma) 20061029.3098] .............................................arn/msp/mpp

http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f?..._ID:1000,76918</http:></http:></http:></http:></http:>

[tropical]

Re: Flu epidemic killing bonobos (chimpanzees) in Congo sanctuary

#previous:
"A flu outbreak raced through the human population of Kinshasa in February 2009, and Woods suspects sanctuary visitors spread the illness to the animals. "They get 30 000 Congolese visitors a year, and most of them are school children," she says."


If vacines exists and are not already applyed, it's time to contemplate preventive vaccinations for target animals in captivity/semi-wilderness also.