Eight gorillas at San Diego Zoo likely infected with Covid-19
LOS ANGELES: As many as eight gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park are presumed to have contracted Covid-19 from a human handler after one of the animals tested positive, marking the first known transmission of the virus to apes, zoo officials said on Monday.
Three among the band of critically endangered western lowland gorillas at the sprawling wildlife park have shown symptoms of the respiratory virus, such as coughing, though none appears severely ill, and all are expected to fully recover, the zoo said in online statements.
Laboratory analysis of a fecal sample collected last Wednesday from one of two gorillas initially seen coughing detected the presence of the virus two days later, zoo spokesman Andrew James said. The positive results were confirmed on Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Veterinary Services Laboratories, the zoo said on its website.
While the test was definitive for only a single animal, all eight gorillas are presumed by zoo officials to have been exposed to and possibly infected with SARCOV-2, the scientific name of the virus that causes Covid-19. “Gorilla troops live together in both our zoological natural habitat and the wild, and we have to assume, as we do with human families, that all members of the family group have been exposed,” the zoo said in a fact sheet. James added that humanstyle collection of mucus or saliva samples from individual gorillas is considered too risky for the apes.
The gorillas are believed to have contracted the virus from an asymptomatic staff member, despite adherence to strict biosecurity protocols consistent with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the zoo said.
Rigorous infection-control measures were in place there well before the pandemic.