4/28/2023 0 Comments Chimpanzee buttThe international research team included authors from West Africa, Europe and the USA. “Long-term health monitoring and research is needed to establish the scale and possible effects of leprosy among wild western chimpanzees,” said Dr. “Western chimpanzees are critically endangered, so even the loss of a few individuals could be significant,” said Dr. Leprosy in humans is easily treated with medication, but the impact on chimpanzees is hard to predict. Professor Leendertz added: “In the Ivory Coast, chimpanzees are more distant from human settlements and it seems more likely that the chimpanzees acquired the infection from another animal species, or from an environmental source such as ticks or bacteria living in water.” “It is clear that leprosy is now being transmitted between separate chimpanzee communities.” Hockings added: “In Guinea-Bissau it is possible that chimpanzees somehow acquired leprosy from humans in this shared landscape, although people do not kill or eat chimpanzees. “This study unlocks a new step toward the understanding of the disease transmission in endemic countries and more investigations will eventually shed light on the dynamic of transmission between human, animal and environmental sources.”ĭr. Charlotte Avanzi, from Colorado State University. “The strains identified in each chimpanzee population are different, and both are rare in humans and other animal reservoirs worldwide,” said Dr. Credit: Tai Chimpanzee ProjectĪlthough the study is the first to report leprosy in wild chimpanzees, there have been cases in captive chimps. Roman Wittig from the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology identified further cases of leprosy at their study site, Tai National Park, Ivory Coast.Īn autopsy of an older female, as well as fecal samples of an adult male that started showing symptoms, also confirmed leprosy.Ī chimpanzee named Woodstock with leprosy in Ivory Coast. “We contacted Professor Fabian Leendertz from the Robert Koch Institute to confirm these cases genetically.”įollowing these findings, Professor Leendertz and Dr. “The symptoms appeared to be strikingly similar to those suffered by humans with advanced leprosy, including lesions and ‘claw’ hand. “We first noticed possible symptoms of leprosy in a population of chimpanzees in Guinea-Bissau. “It’s amazing that it also happens to be in our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, especially considering how well studied chimpanzees are in the wild. Kimberley Hockings, of Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall. “This is the first confirmation of leprosy in nonhuman animals in Africa,” said lead author Dr. Humans are considered the main host for Mycobacterium leprae bacteria, which cause leprosy, but “spill-over” to other mammals such as nine-banded armadillos and red squirrels is known to occur. Credit: Cantanhez Chimpanzee Project, Elena Bersacola, Marina Ramon Context is everything.A chimpanzee named Brinkos with leprosy in Guinea-Bissau. It’s one thing to get patted when engaged in battle, but quite another if it happens in more civilized environs. In a recent episode of the TV sitcom “Friends,” the character Chandler was irritated by a boss who expressed the company’s esprit de corps with a slap on the butt after pep talks. The allegations of the case may seem particularly offensive, but even seemingly innocuous gestures of male camaraderie may not-by ‘90s standards, anyway-always be welcome. The complainant alleges that the behavior of co-workers and a supervisor on an offshore oil-drilling platform in Louisiana “went beyond mere horseplay to constitute severe and pervasive harassment because of sex.” Crossing the line between friendly roughhousing and “extremely crude horseplay” is at the heart of a same-sex harassment case under review by the U.S. It can be sticky among human males as well. Things can get out of hand, “especially with juveniles testing to see how far they can go before another chimp screams.” The best signal that this is play and not real aggression, he says, is the “play face”-the lips are loose and the corners of the mouth are drawn back. Of course, sorting out the elements of play and aggression can be difficult, McGrew says.
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