Chimpanzees are easy to transmit dangerous diseases

Children close to wild chimpanzees can transmit dangerous diseases to the rest of the family. A 22-year long study of chimpanzee respiratory disease found that death and disease increased when chimpanzees were two and a half years old - their age was most playful.

Christophe Boesch, a primitive animal researcher at Max Planck Institute for Human Evolution in Leipzig, Germany, and at the same time, said: 'The chimpanzees pulled each other's hair and hugged each other. rolling, but then they come back to their mother '.

This cycle is like the diseases that children infect from school. 'We all know that when children reach a certain age, they return home carrying flu and the whole family is infected'.

Mortality rate

Peter Walsh from Max Planck Institute for Human Evolution, a member of the study, said vaccination of chimpanzees and limiting their exposure to humans - to prevent them from becoming infected with diseases. human danger - can help prevent these diseases.

Boesch's team began studying chimpanzees living in Taï National Park in Ivory Coast in the late 1970s. They gathered knowledge about the use of hunting tools, habits and everyday life. this thing. His research team also kept detailed information on the birth, death, and epidemic rates divided into two groups including 250 children.

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Many children die from respiratory infections. Boesch and colleagues discovered that the virus strain infects chimpanzees exactly like the normal strains of human viruses.

To understand the factors causing the disease, Boesch, Walsh and colleagues Hjalmar Kühl used a time chart to represent deaths in chimpanzees and then looked for similar natural life cycle models. They thought that weather phenomena such as El Niño would be an explanation for this disease.

Age cycle

Instead, primates have found that the epidemic rises in a three-and-a-half-year period, just at the time of the chimpanzee's most stubborn age group.

The mother of many age-old chimpanzees died in a series of epidemics that responded by continuing to get pregnant and give birth about a year later. This creates a generation of the same age.

When the chimpanzees reach the age of 2 to 2 and a half years, the time they play with the cubs doubles as the older or younger chimpanzees. This is the cause of spreading the disease and causing a new epidemic.

Elizabeth Lonsdorf at Lincoln Zoo in Chicago said that this conclusion is based on some indirect evidence and judgment, but seems appropriate. She said: 'If they are doing a dispute, this is a pretty convincing situation.'

Instant response

However, she said that not all chimpanzees have the same social dynamics. The chimpanzees she studied in Tanzania did not give birth at the same time, and mothers of young chimpanzees often isolate themselves and their children.

She said: 'In the past, chimpanzees were thought to be chimpanzees. Today, with much research done, we know that this is not entirely accurate. '

Preventing chimpanzees from playing is not impossible, researchers say humans should stay away from chimpanzees when they are about 2 1/2 years old.

Walsh said vaccination of chimpanzees or playing with chimpanzees as well as other chimpanzees in the herd could reduce infection. This idea can raise controversies in our community about animal conservation.

He said: 'The main problem is to have some parts of the conservation community respond immediately to strong management measures. They only see pressure on animals, but it seems impossible to imagine the tremendous impact of not doing anything. '