[monkeywire] Study: Socializing Helped Ebola Wipe Out Gorillas

Kevin Walter krw at jimmyhiggins.com
Mon Jul 10 12:34:30 EDT 2006


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060710/sc_nm/science_ebola_dc

Socializing Helped Ebola Wipe Out Gorillas - Study

July 10, 2006

Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

Social contact helped the Ebola virus virtually wipe out a population  
of gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, French researchers  
reported on Monday.

A 2004 outbreak of the virus, which also kills people, killed 97  
percent of gorillas who lived in groups and 77 percent of solitary  
males, Damien Caillaud and colleagues from the University of  
Montpellier and the University of Rennes in France reported.

Overall, it wiped out 95 percent of the gorilla population within a  
year, they reported in the journal Current Biology.

"Thousands of gorillas have probably disappeared," they wrote.

The study shows that the deadly virus spreads directly from gorilla  
to gorilla and does not necessarily depend on a still-unidentified  
third species of animal, perhaps a bat, that can transmit the virus  
without getting ill from it.

It also may shed light on how early humans evolved, they suggested.  
The findings may show that pre-humans were slow to live in large  
social groups because disease outbreaks could wipe out those who did.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever is one of the most virulent viruses ever  
seen, killing between 50 percent and 90 percent of victims. The World  
Health Organization says about 1,850 people have been infected and  
1,200 have died since the Ebola virus was discovered in 1976.

WHO and other experts say people probably start outbreaks when they  
hunt and butcher chimpanzees. The virus is transmitted in blood,  
tissue and other fluids.

Caillaud's team said Ebola is a serious threat to the survival of  
endangered gorillas and chimpanzees, along with hunting and the  
destruction of the forests they live in.

The researchers documented one outbreak of Ebola and its effects on  
gorillas and people in Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

"On October 13, 2003, two villagers from Mbandza hunting at an  
undetermined site inside the park got contaminated and became index  
cases of an outbreak that killed 29 people in seven weeks," they wrote.

They were able to identify 400 individual gorillas.

"Overall, 109 distinct gorilla social units visiting Lokoue were  
reliably identified and monitored during a 1,360-day period."

By July 2004, nearly all the gorillas were dead. "Due to intra-group  
transmission, the death rate was highest among gorillas living in  
groups," the researchers wrote.

Health workers move in fast when Ebola breaks out among humans, to  
isolate patients and to make sure everyone who has contact with them  
wears protective clothing.
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