Anthrax kills wild apes in Ivory Coast

Anthrax has killed apes in tropical rain forests in Ivory Coast where it has never been seen before and could pose a threat to humans, German researchers said Wednesday.

Scientists had known from experiments that the acute infectious disease caused by spore-forming bacteria could kill monkeys, but until now they had never come across evidence of it in wild populations.

"Anthrax has never been found killing chimpanzees in the wild before," Heinz Ellerbrok, a virologist at the Robert Koch-Institut in Berlin, said in an interview. "It could pose a danger to humans because in this part of Africa it is quite common for bushmeat to be consumed and there is also illegal poaching going on."

Conservationists have warned that Africa's lucrative bushmeat industry, which is a key source of food and income for poor people, is threatening species such as gorillas and chimpanzees with extinction.

Scientists are also concerned that people who hunt and eat the wild animals are being infected with animal illnesses that could pose a public health threat to humans.

Alerted Behavioral scientists who have been observing three communities of wild chimpanzees in the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast since 1984 were alarmed when they noticed a high number of deaths over nine months, and alerted Ellerbrok and his colleagues.

The wild chimpanzees had been healthy shortly before they died, suggesting an acute infection had been the cause.

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"We show that anthrax can be found in wild nonhuman primates living in a tropical rainforest," Ellerbrok and his colleagues said in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

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The researchers are not sure where the bacteria came from. They could have been there for a long time and had not been discovered. They suspect infections may be occurring in other parts of Africa.

"It is new to observe anthrax in this region, although we don't know where it comes from. Anthrax may be an indicator of other pathogens that are there," Ellerbrok said.

"There is also a risk of interspecies transmission from chimpanzees to humans. It is a realistic danger in this area due to bushmeat consumption," he added.

Anthrax can be transmitted by inhaling the spores, the deadliest form of the illness, through a cut in the skin, or by eating contaminated meat. Five people in the United States died and others were infected by anthrax-laced letters sent in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.