CA: Gorillas test positive for coronavirus at San Diego park

[Shiloh]

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSt...-park-75184750

Gorillas test positive for coronavirus at San Diego park
Several gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have tested positive for the coronavirus in what is believed to be the first known cases among such primates
By JULIE WATSON Associated Press
11 January 2021, 15:58
• 3 min read

SAN DIEGO -- Several gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have tested positive for the coronavirus in what is believed to be the first known cases among such primates in the United States and possibly the world.

The park’s executive director, Lisa Peterson, told The Associated Press on Monday that eight gorillas that live together at the park are believed to have the virus and several have been coughing.

It appears the infection came from a member of the park’s wildlife care team who also tested positive for the virus but has been asymptomatic and wore a mask at all times around the gorillas. The park has been closed to the public since Dec. 6 as part of the state of California's lockdown efforts to curb coronavirus cases.

Veterinarians are closely monitoring the gorillas and they will remain in their habitat at the park, north of San Diego, Peterson said. For now, they are being given vitamins, fluid and food but no specific treatment for the virus.

“Aside from some congestion and coughing, the gorillas are doing well,” Peterson said...

[Treyfish]

Gorillas contract coronavirus at San Diego Zoo Safari Park

By ALEX WIGGLESWORTH,
JONATHAN WOSEN
JAN. 11, 2021
1:54 PM
Multiple gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have contracted the coronavirus in the first known instances of natural transmission to great apes, the zoo announced Monday.

The zoo tested the gorillas’ fecal samples after two of them began coughing Wednesday, the zoo said in a news release. Preliminary results returned Friday showed the animals had tested positive, and U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratories confirmed the results Monday, the zoo said.

The tests confirmed the presence of the virus in only some of the gorillas but did not rule it out in others, the zoo said. Because gorillas live together, zoo officials are assuming that the entire troop has been exposed.

Three of the gorillas are currently showing signs of illness, including coughing, and are being monitored by veterinarians, who will treat each symptom as it arises, the zoo said. The entire troop is under observation....
The park first suspected the gorillas could have been exposed to the virus when a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus more than a week ago...https://www.latimes.com/california/s...oo-safari-park

[Treyfish]

...The three gorillas, whom the zoo is not naming, are still showing symptoms. Some have runny noses and are lethargic. “Everybody is a little more tempered in their activities,” Peterson says, “but they’re getting fluids and eating well.”

This news confirms earlier research that critically endangered western lowland gorillas—along with several other rare or endangered species of apes—are particularly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. “The potential for COVID-like disease outbreak in either captive or wild populations of endangered primates is pretty high,” Harris Lewin, a distinguished professor of ecology and evolution at University of California, Davis, told National Geographic in November.

Fewer than 5,000 gorillas remain in the wild. Because they live in close family groups, researchers worry that if one caught the virus, the infection may spread quickly and imperil already precarious populations...https://www.nationalgeographic.com/a...e-coronavirus/

[Emily]

The 1918 flu hit NHP's very badly. Hope this doesn't end the same. (NYT archive is behind a paywall now.)



Sierra Leon Oct. 18, 1918: 1,000 human deaths per week from flu; Chimpanzees and monkeys are weak in the chest and "dying like flies."

[sharon sanders]

bump this

[Treyfish]

COVID-19 cases among San Diego gorillas have keepers at Calgary Zoo watching animals ‘like a hawk’

By Gil Tucker Global News
Posted January 12, 2021 7:43 pm
News that eight gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park are believed to have tested positive for the coronavirus has keepers at Canadian zoos on the lookout for the virus among animals in their care.

“We know that primates are very susceptible, because we share so many viruses and bacterial infections with primates — we’re very closely related.” the Calgary Zoo’s head of veterinary services, Dr. Sandie Black, said.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7572225/c...ions-jan-2021/

[Treyfish]

San Diego Zoo Safari Park gorilla troop recovers from coronavirus

Troop was infected with a West Coast virus strain

By: Mark Saunders
Posted at 9:59 AM, Feb 15, 2021

and last updated 12:59 PM, Feb 15, 2021

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A troop of western lowland gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park has recovered from the coronavirus.

The zoo has reopened its gorilla exhibit, .....

The zoo believes that a staff member who was asymptomatic passed the virus to the troop, despite taking all safety precautions. The troop was infected with the B.1.429 strain of the virus, known as one of two West Coast variants that may be more contagious than other strains.

...During their care, zoo officials said Winston, the park's silverback gorilla, was treated with an experimental monoclonal antibody therapy...

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-zoo-safari-park-gorilla-troop-recovers-from-coronavirus