Great Apes Are Prone To Getting COVID-19 Infection, Here’s How Researchers Are Protecting Them

Humans studying and caring for the apes are taking extra precautions to prevent COVID-19 infection from spreading, including its unidentified impacts.

Stephen Ngulu, a wildlife veterinarian, usually begins his working day watching from a distance as the chimpanzees he's caring for eat their breakfast. Specifically, he's observing them animals for runny noses, coughs, or other signs of illness.

These days, the veterinarian and others at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Kenya have become doubly vigilant.

Chimpanzees, as well as the other great apes, including orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos, are susceptible to many human viruses and other infections that infect people.

Therefore, when COVID-19 started spreading, the community that investigates and provides care for great apes become more worried.

(Photo : Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Chimpanzees and other great apes including orangutans, gorillas and bonobos, are susceptible to many human viruses and other infections that infect people.

Distinct Possibility of Getting Infected 

According to an infectious disease ecologist at the Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute, Fabian Leendertz, "We do not know what will happen if the virus" is transferred to the great apes. The occurrence might be severe, he added.

A Smithsonian Magazine report said these endangered apes have a similar receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to get into human cells, "angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 or ACE2, making infection a distinctive possibility." What's less predictable, Leendertz explained, is how ill the apes might get "were the virus to take hold."

The expert also said humans share at least 96 percent of their DNA with every great ape species. Meaning, apes are vulnerable to a lot of viruses and bacteria that infect humans.

And, even though some human pathogens like a type of coronavirus also known as HCoV-OC43 that leads to some occurrences of common cold lead to only minor illness in animals, other infectious can be devastating.

Fransiska Sulistyo, an orangutan veterinary consultant in Indonesia, said there had been occurrences of "common human respiratory pathogens spilling into chimpanzees," and it is fatal to them.

Help Protocols Implemented 

Study analyses recommend that the "underlying pathogens were human respiratory syncytial virus or human metapneumovirus," which both result in respiratory illnesses in humans, along with secondary microbial infections.

Even in normal times, people working at ape sanctuaries or those investigating apes in the wild are continuously trying to strip off disease.

Guidelines from IUCN or the International Union for Conservation of Nature propose that field researchers, as well as sanctuary staff that come from other countries, should quarantine for at least one week prior to entry in ape habitat, in the wild, or otherwise.

Furthermore, they need to wear face masks and keep at least seven meters away from apes. The IUCN suggests, too, that working with apes keep updated on immunizations, undergo screening for infectious diseases of regional concern like tuberculosis and hepatitis, among others, and observe signs of disease in research staff.

According to Baylor University's Michael Muehlenbein, an anthropologist, such practices have been typical for several years.

 Muehlenbein, who wrote about risks to apes and other wild animals of ecotourism in the Annual Review of Anthropology added, the said practices just "need to be applied more vigilantly."

He elaborated, though, the guidelines of the IUCN are just recommendations. Implementation responsibility rests on both research groups and sanctuaries.

Severe Respiratory Outbreak

Sweetwaters applies such practices, said Ngulu. Although in February last year, he said, he got a taste of what would transpire if a virus-like COVID-19 broke through.

A severe respiratory outbreak could have possibly transmitted from an asymptomatic employee infected by some viral or bacterial pathogen, had impacted all of the chimpanzees of the sanctuary from which two died.

From last that 2019 experience, Ngulu said, "I can say I was baptized by fire." With the occurrence of COVID-19, it has closed areas for visitors and deferred volunteer activities. More so, only essential staff were allowed into the sanctuary.

In addition, workers coming back from leave go through a 14-day quarantine at the staff camp rather than resuming work right away. After that, they stay at the sanctuary for one month at a time until another member of the staff comes to substitute them.

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