Great Apes 'At Risk' From Ebola Virus

An outbreak of Ebola, first confirmed early in 2003 when a band of lowland gorillas in the northwest section of the Congo began to die, is now spreading eastward, claiming the lives of hundreds of gorillas and chimpanzees. To date, the deadly disease has also claimed over 140 human lives, most likely due to the victims eating meat from infected primates

The Congo's Cuvette-Ouest region bordering Gabon, has been quarantined since the beginning of the year as a means of stopping the virus from spreading to other regions. But in a village-created protected area - the Lossi Sanctuary (250 km2) situated about 15 km to the south west of the famous Odzala National Park, the death of hundreds of lowland gorillas and chimpanzees is now being discovered. To date, gorilla mortality appears to be about half of the previously estimated population of 1200 living in and around the sanctuary.

This most recent outbreak at Lossi suggests that the devastating effects of the Ebola virus on great ape populations is moving eastwards. The forests in and around the Odzala National Park are known to contain the highest known density of lowland gorillas in Africa.

Scientists working with ECOFAC (an EU-funded regional conservation program) warn that we could be facing a catastrophic decline in ape populations at the very heart of their range in Central Africa.

According to ECOFAC, Spanish primatologists Magdalena Bermejo and Germain Ilera, who have been studying gorillas at Lossi for the past nine years, report that the eight families (139 individuals) they have been monitoring since 1994 have disappeared from their study area of 40 km2 in the sanctuary.

Lowland gorillas, which are classified as endangered species, live in tropical rain forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic.

In response to this tragic outbreak, an emergency workshop was held in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, on March 4-6, 2003 to bring together government authorities, NGOs (both conservation and human medicine) and virology experts to come up with immediate and long-term action plans to address the current Ebola virus outbreak.

Named after the Ebola River, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the site of an outbreak of the virus in 1976, Ebola is an RNA virus of African origin that causes an often fatal hemorrhagic fever.

Mountain gorillas, located in eastern DRC, Uganda and Rwanda are presently unaffected by the Ebola outbreak. Fortunately, the fragile mountain gorilla population is geographically removed from the lowland gorilla population by many hundreds of miles.