Ebola impacting Chimps and Gorillas even more than humans

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/48209

From: Kevin Mathews, Care2, More from this Affiliate
Published January 25, 2015 08:38 AM

While the whole world is aware of the many human fatalities from the Ebola epidemic in Western Africa, you may not realize that the disease has claimed hundreds of thousands of other victims in the area. Unfortunately, Ebola is simultaneously working its way through gorilla and chimpanzee populations with no sign of stopping. In the past 25 years, Ebola has wiped out 33% of all apes, reports the Daily Beast.

Apes are already up against a number of obstacles that threaten their lives like poaching and habitat destruction. The last thing they need is to have a highly fatal disease reduce their numbers further. It’s even more devastating when you reflect on the fact that many of these primate species that are ravaged by Ebola were already officially listed as endangered.

Though prompt and adequate medical treatment gives humans a better chance of surviving the disease, primates are not so lucky. Infected chimpanzees die 77% of the time, while gorillas have a glum 95% mortality rate.

Given the epidemic, many conservationists and animal activists have called for increased efforts to discover an Ebola vaccine for gorillas to help limit the spread of the disease. While the interest is there, prioritizing this research is pretty controversial with the public and some scientific communities. With thousands of people dying from Ebola, it’s hard to convince people to focus on the ape side of the problem. As such, available resources are primarily devoted to the search for a human vaccine.

Gorilla mother and baby image via Shutterstock.

Read more at ENN Affiliate, Care2.

[Laffy Kat]

1. It always has. I recommend...

Reading Spillover by David Quanmann. He is one of my favorite science writers and this book is about zoonoses, diseases that jump species. Fascinating.

[seveneyes]

2. Many bad moments in time can transpire in Nature

Let all human interventions entwine with the lesser of the bad.

[KamaAina]

3. Perhaps the vaccine for us will work for them, too

[Hutzpa]

4. Well duh!

if chimps and gorillas are the carriers of the disease then it's obvious that people are ignoring them for fear of contacting the disease.

[GummyBearz]

5. This is why

they don't like us and will eventually take over civilization and do horrible things to humans... Charlton Heston, I hope you are actually still alive, out there on a top secret space mission, and will eventually take Earth back from the apes.

[AtomicKitten]

6. This is heartbreaking.

Poachers.
Habitat destruction.
And now Ebola ... with a devastating mortality rate.