Conservation efforts are being negated by the contact with the animals causing disease. Ironically, both primate research and ecotourism are aimed at helping great Apes but the proximity to the primates of tourists is also spreading diseases in their population. The dark side of primate research and ecotourism. This great sensitivity of monkeys to human pathogens isn’t astonishing and can be explained both by their genetic proximity and by their great isolation from humans.
In a study on how diseases are shared among primates, lemurs are found to carry human viruses also. Other primates can also catch human germs. So human bacteria, viruses and parasites are finding their way to Great Ape populations. This could occur when chimpanzees raid agricultural fields outside the park boundaries and come in contact with sewage used as fertiliser, the researchers say. Researchers report that a people may be transmitting the Cryptosporidium parasite to Gombe’s chimpanzees. A genetic study published in Emerging Microbes & Infections, showed that the two epidemics were cause by different viruses responsible for simple colds in humans. Many great Apes died during those episodes. These cases represented the first confirmed evidence of viruses transmitted directly from humans to wild great apes.Ī bit later, in 2013, Kanyawara Chimapzees from Uganda contracted a common human cold virus, the rhinovirus C and in 2016 the same population contracted pneumonia from another virus. The researchers from Emory University found that tissue samples gathered from chimp victims tested positive for one of two germs - human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) or human metapneumovirus (HMPV). Nearly all the endangered chimps in the region became sick and many died. hospitals and nursing homes."Īnother study investigated five respiratory disease outbreaks in the Chimpanzee population of Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa between 19. It mirrors some of the worst-case scenarios in U.S. "We thought that our study would find some pathogen transmission from humans to the apes, but we were surprised at the prevalence of drug-resistant staph we found in the animals. "One of the biggest threats to wild apes is the risk of acquiring novel pathogens from humans," says Thomas Gillespie, a primate disease ecologist at Emory University. Indeed, virtually all diseases that can harm Humans can harm the great apes as they share so many genetic and physiologic properties with us.Ī team of scientists working in Africa were looking for evidence of pathogen transmission from humans to apes at two chimpanzee sanctuaries in Uganda and Zambia, and were surprised by what they found: 58 percent of the chimpanzees carried drug-resistant strains of the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria probably acquired from ten of the human veterinarians working at the sanctuaries who also carried the bacteria. Researchers are finding that Great Apes can catch diseases from humans too. But the transmission, as it turns out, isn’t one-sided. Gorillas may have given humans pubic lice, also known as "the crabs." Ebola may have spread from bats to monkeys and to humans from people who ate infected animals. HIV, originally SIV, evolved from chimps and other primates. There is a long history of diseases that have spread from great apes to humans, including some of the most aggressive infectious diseases to emerge in recent decades, such as Ebola and HIV. Most of the more recent human pandemics can be classified as zoonosis, infectious diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans. Human and Chimpanzees share a long list of diseases Common human viruses are killing the endangered great apes. But their contact with the great Apes is also bringing disease and sickness to the mammals. Humans have been threatening wild populations of chimpanzees for decades, through stress, poaching and habitat loss. Human diseases are threatening chimpanzees
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