Lola Ya Bonobo

brigitta, suisse, on 03 Apr 2009

Mes chers. Je ne trouve pas les mots pur exprimer le peur que j’si en pensant a vous tous. Je croise les doigts pour que tout va mieux!

Cordialement,
Brigitta

Comment va Boyoma?

sheryl bottner, on 03 Apr 2009

I sent questions to Vanessa that were very similar to the ones Christine C. posed here. I just got an answer from Vanessa, who doesn’t have great Internet connection and can’t really look at blogs right now. Here it is:

“good question. the most important thing at the moment for us is to protect the bonobos for the release project. these bonobos are in complete quarantine, and only select members of staff go in and out. so again NO RELEASED BONOBOS HAVE GOT THE FLU. they are in an entire separate part of the sanctuary with no contact with sick bonobos and they rarely see people. Claudine has had them in quarantine for 6 months with these procedures in place, not just for the flu, but for other dieases as well. there have been 5 health checks and ALL the bonobos in the sanctuary have been vaccinated for all diseases recommended by IUCN. obviously they need a flu vaccine and we are working on it.

for the rest, we only have two enclosures and a night building. at the first sign of a cough or a runny nose, we keep the bonobo isolated in the night building. both to keep an eye on the bonobo, and to protect the other bonobos. the problem is, the virus is just too fast. unlike a zoo, or a biomedical laboratory, the bonobos are free to range around a huge forest in the day time. they disappear at about 8 in the morning, and show up at 11 and 4pm to eat, then at 7pm to sleep.

the only time we can really separate them is first thing in the morning then when they come into sleep. and the virus is just too fast. a bonobo who is fine in the morning can be almost falling over by the afternoon. if we lock the bonobos inside all day, then it makes contamination that much faster. everyone disinfects their hands all the time, they change clothes and shower both in the morning when they arrive and before they leave in the afternoon. apart from this, with the shortfall in the budget this year, there’s no money and no time to organise more equipment or another emergency enclosure. we’re all just fighting it as best we can with what we’ve got.

We’ve had some people freak out that this is a virus called H5N1 which is fatal to humans, but it’s not. it’’s not ebola or bird flu or any other disease lethal to humans. and we know that because the keepers have been getting sick from the bonobos, they get the flu and they are over it in 24 hours. It happens once every couple of years that a flu going round kinshasa in jan/ feb hits the bonobos in march. bonobos, we think, have a much lower immune system than people, which is why the kinsahsa virus that lasted for 24 hours in humans, is so much more severe than bonobos. we think it is human respiratory syncytial virus , again non fatal to humans, but we’re not sure.”

s.

Annie, on 05 Apr 2009

What a sweet picture..kind of uplifting during all this trauma! Still saying prayers that the rest will come out ok!