{UAH} WE ARE PEOPLE, TOO: Ebola 'has killed a third of the world’s chimpanzees and gorillas’

Ebola 'has killed a third of the world's chimpanzees and gorillas'

Ebola has wiped out a third of the world's chimpanzee and gorilla populations since the 1990s, conservationists warn

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A third of the world's chimps and gorillas have been killed by ebola Photo: ALAMY

By Erin Conway-Smith in Johannesburg

5:37PM GMT 22 Jan 2015

Ebola has wiped out a third of the world's chimpanzee and gorilla populations, and could threaten the survival of these already endangered great apes, conservationists have warned.

The ongoing Ebola epidemic in west Africa is the worst-ever outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever among humans, killing 8,641 people according to the latest World Health Organisation figures.

But outbreaks have taken place sporadically in central Africa since the first known case in 1976. Ebola is considered a major threat to gorillas and chimpanzees.

In an article for the Jane Goodall Institute, ecologist Ria Ghai wrote that a third of the world's chimpanzees and gorillas have died from Ebola since the 1990s.

"Unlike human epidemics, however, wild ape epidemics tend to go unnoticed for months or even years," Ms Ghai wrote.

Some of the previous Ebola outbreaks among humans are believed to have stemmed from infected gorillas and chimpanzees, found dead in the forest and butchered for food.

Conservationists have called for greater resources to be put towards developing a vaccine to help save the animals from extinction. However there are concerns this could be seen as competing with human vaccine research.

According to the conservation group WWF, outbreaks of Ebola have caused large-scale die-offs of great apes, decimating populations of endangered and critically endangered species, and taking generations to recover.

For example a 1994 outbreak in Minkébé, northern Gabon, wiped out what used to be the world's second-largest protected population of gorillas and chimpanzees, WWF said.

Great apes, which are closely related to humans, are highly tactile animals, facilitating the spread of Ebola among their family groups.

As with humans, mortality from Ebola is extremely high, estimated at 95 per cent for gorillas and 77 per cent for chimpanzees.

It is unclear whether West Africa's chimpanzees have been affected by the current Ebola epidemic, which is believed to have started in December 2013 with an infected fruit bat in a forested area of Guinea.

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower

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