Ebola is epidemic in some regions of western Africa, and now the deadly virus may be responsible for the deaths of one-third of the global population of gorillas. Chimpanzees are also experiencing massive numbers of early deaths from the deadly virus. Around 95 percent of gorillas and 77 percent of chimpanzees who contract the illness perish from the disease.
Meera Inglis from the University of Sheffield is calling Ebola "the single greatest threat to the survival of gorillas and chimpanzees."
"Sharing 98 percent of our DNA, great apes are also victim to Ebola and show the same pathology as we do. Unlike human epidemics, however, wild ape epidemics tend to go unnoticed for months or even years," researcher Ria Ghai wrote for the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada.
As many as one-third of all the gorillas and chimpanzees in the world have died from Ebola since the 1990's, according to some estimates. The virus comes in waves to primate populations, in a manner similar to the way the microorganisms infect humans. Researchers believe there are no more than 100,000 gorillas in the wild. Between 2002 and 2003, an outbreak of the Zaire version of Ebola killed around 5,000 western gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 90 percent of gorillas living in Minkébé Park within northern Gabon perished during an earlier outbreak, in 1995.
"We need both short-term solutions to halting the spread of Ebola and long-term ones to prevent future outbreaks. As a short-term strategy, vaccination could prove enormously useful in tackling the Ebola crisis in apes. Unlike for humans, a vaccine for gorillas and apes has been developed which thus far has been proven both safe and effective," Inglis wrote in an article for The Conversation.
Ebola was successfully treated in great apes in clinical trials announced in 2014, but manufacture of the drug has not begun, making an immediate treatment program impossible.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has recently listed Western gorillas as critically endangered and the Eastern gorilla as an endangered species.
Deforestation is providing a major challenge to the survivability of African gorillas. Researchers who took part in the recent report believe that forest regeneration could provide terrain for the primates to wander, reducing contact and transmission of the disease. Updated laws forbidding consumption of the meat and providing additional protections for the animals could also help populations rebound, investigators determined.
Ebola and illegal hunting for food and for wildlife trading, along with war, also are putting a serious strain on global populations of great apes, researchers reported.
"Without aggressive investments in law enforcement, protected area management and Ebola prevention, the next decade will see our closest relatives pushed to the brink of extinction," Peter Walsh of Princeton University reported in 2003.
