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The Great Ape Task Force |
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Great Apes Emergency Task Force |
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| Goals: |
Support of field sites when great apes are showing
severe symptoms or cases of death are observed. |
| Members: |
vets with experiences in the field of health problems in
wild great apes |
| Task of the vets: |
Clinical follow up, treatment, necropsies |
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| Find here a short report about outbreaks
GAHMU has been involved thus far. |
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Following the IMPACT - protocol (Internet-supported Management
Program to Assist Conservation Technologies) developed by the Mountain
Gorilla Veterinary Project (link), this task force will offer case- and
site-specific help to field-sites encountering an high risk of
an outbreak of a disease. |
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Preparation:
- Inquiry on which field sites would be interested in being
included
- Evaluation of the field site equipment (if necessary,
may also be done by permanent field staff)
- Assessment of infrastructure available (transportation,
fridge, liquid nitrogen)
- Assessment of “first aid” possibilities (vets
of the area, medical doctors)
- Assessment of the possibilities for training permanent
staff (researchers, assistants) for necropsies and treatment
- Assessment of material needed for necropsies and treatment
- Assessment of laboratories and analyses available in the
country (discussion of capacity of lab to perform fast analyses)
- Formation of staff regarding observation of sick animals
and non-invasive sample collection
- Organisation of export permits for samples for each country
in order to avoid delay when samples must be exported immediately
for rapid diagnostics
From this we can know what material is needed in a given site, what experience is available and therefore what support is needed.
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Implementation:
Organisation
a) Field
- Vets working within a project in an African country should
be responsible for field sites within reach (good travel connections
given).
- Vets from other countries (e.g. USA, Europe) should be responsible
for a certain number of other field sites subdivided per species
and field site.
Ideally, vets more experienced with chimps should mainly be responsible
for chimp sites, those with experiences with gorilla should cover this
species.
Assignment of specific field sites to individual vets enhances
the efficiency of handling the problem in the case of an emergency
since the vet will be familiar with the site and circumstances. In case “the
vet” of the field site is not able to travel immediately (no time,
traveling elsewhere, finances finished, no visa), another vet
of the crew should take his place. Therefore all information on the site
and
the plans should always be made available to all members of the
vet task force. The vet responsible for a certain number of sites (depending
on
the sources and time he can make available) should also be the
one performing the preparatory visit to the site.
Standard protocols for necropsies and sample storage will be discussed
and made available soon.
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b) Analysis
To make the shipment of samples easier and keep track of all
the samples that might be handled by the force, we suggest to
have that centralised at the Robert Koch-Institut in Berlin.
- First, the central role of the institute in human health
allows them to rapidly deliver Guthrie permits (for importation
of samples) and guarantee of safety (to samples that might
be potentially dangerous). This will facilitate dramatically
import into the EU.
- Second, Fabian Leendertz will make sure that all samples
will be entered in a databank so that it will at any time be
possible to know all samples that have been collected, what
has been done with them and where they are. He will also centralise
the results for analysis and diagnostic.
- Third, he will organise the shipment to other laboratories
that have agreed to contribute (see list below) or coordinate
the investigations to enable a conclusive diagnostics. This
last point is also important since samples do not represent
an unlimited amount of material and need therefore to be used
carefully and optimally.
Fabian Leendertz will co-ordinate through the Robert Koch-Institut the
distribution of the samples (or extracted DNA/RNA), the updating of all
samples that have been collected, and fast and effective analyses.
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Laboratories participating:
Laboratories participating must guarantee:
- Samples of great apes are analysed immediately.
- Results are communicated immediately to the vets of the “task
force”, the field site, field site responsible and the
co-ordinator.
- Results will be discussed with the vets and field workers
and published together.
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We already have compiled a first list of labs interested in participating.
Labs interested are free to add their names and
pathogen of interest. Priority is given to labs that are capable
of analysing a broad spectrum of pathogens in order to save time
and keep the network simple.
In case a local lab is capable of performing analysis for a
certain pathogen, it may also be possible to have the pathogen
being analysed according to proximity to the lab (e.g. Ebola
at CIRF for Gabon and Congo vs. Ebola at RKI for Tanzania and
Côte d’Ivoire for example).
As a mid-term goal for the participation of vets and laboratories,
a quality assessment should be implemented.
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image: Mike Serres |
