Primate Problem

In a year when the links between human health and wildlife have been heavily scrutinised, biologists report evidence of a human disease, leprosy, affecting wild chimpanzees. Caused by infection with the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae or M. lepromatosis, leprosy was notoriously feared and stigmatised throughout history, although it's now rarer and treatable. Infections have been recorded in nine-banded armadillos and red squirrels in the wild, and several primate species in captivity, but these recent cases in West Africa are the first documented in wild primates. Direct monitoring and camera-traps tracked symptom development in multiple individuals (including a male named Woodstock, pictured), and sampling from faecal matter and post-mortem tissues revealed two independent strains of M. leprae. These strains are rare in humans, suggesting they may have come from another wild source – an important finding with implications for our understanding of leprosy, and the health of both chimpanzees and local people.

Today is World Leprosy Day

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

Website

• Image by the Taï Chimpanzee Project
• Research from the Project Group Epidemiology of Highly Pathogenic Microorganisms, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany and multiple collaborating institutes
• Image copyright held by the photographer, Taï Chimpanzee Project
• Published in BioRxiv, November 2020 (not peer reviewed)