Teams of vet s and other conservation experts conduct disease surveillance at the Kruger National Park. Picture: Bongani Shilubane /African News Agency (ANA) Teams of vet s and other conservation experts conduct disease surveillance at the Kruger National Park. Picture: Bongani Shilubane /African News Agency (ANA)
Human influence on wildlife is
demonstrating itself though transmissible diseases and there is increasing evidence of tuberculosis (TB) being passed from humans to elephants.
Veterinary senior manager at SANParks, Peter Buss, said in 2016 he and Stellenbosch University professor, Michele Miller, were alerted to an elephant carcass.
“By good fortune we heard of an elephant that had died. We found it had contracted human TB.”
It is rare to find a dead elephant, said Buss. Elephants mostly die because their teeth wear out and they cannot eat.
“When we got to the carcass, we checked its teeth and found they were perfectly fine.”
It takes an elephant about 10 years from infection to testing positive.
The two veterinary experts took “the necessary samples to various laboratories and when the results came back it was confirmed it was TB; not just any, but human TB”.
They set out to find out if there were more cases. “We have had only this one case. The evidence suggests it is only this one incident.”
What is the significance of the research? Animals have had foot-and mouth-disease, swine fever and the likes but TB is a new disease. It is not from this continent, Buss said.
The elephant population is smaller, unlike before.
“In managing an ecosystem, we do so not in isolation,” said Ike Phaahla, marketing and communications manager of SANParks, in an effort to explain why elephants could be tested for TB.
“We have done about 30 of these tests. We have so far only found that one death.
“We thought it could have died of a chronic disease, one of which - in the KNP (Kruger National Park) - is TB. So we did an autopsy and found it had TB.”
The tests found the lungs were badly affected, about 80% of them were not functional, said Buss.
The good news is that there are some species that are resistant to this TB. “We have no idea if there’s a huge problem with the disease.”
But it is a case of so far, so good.
The beast chosen for the testing was first darted with a tranquilliser that knocked him out for about one hour.
Then the process of looking directly for bacteria was performed.
In simple terms, said Buss, they washed out the lungs.
“The fluid has no impact on the lungs as it is absorbed into the bloodstream.”
Asked about the animal’s age, Buss said they would “look at his teeth, and we’ll get a better idea”.
Immobilising animals is stressful for them, but as long as it is only for a short time, it will have no adverse effect. A random animal is picked to be darted.
Stellenbosch University is working in collaboration with the KNP, which is why Miller is based at the park for these tests.
She said the elephant could have contracted the TB when a human dropped a piece food contaminated with that organism and the elephant picked it up.
“The big thinking is not so much on the one animal, but on the entire population. There’s concern for other species, including humans.
“In human TB, one of the concerns is the disease becoming drug resistant. We did not find antibiotic resistance in animals. If we had found it, it may have been harder to deal with. It is not the primary concern, which is how to prevent it.
“During a drought, infections abound. The dead elephant was found during that time.”
Miller reiterates the point: “It came into contact with humans or their waste. Someone could have been eating an apple, for example, threw it out and there was bacteria on it.
“Some of our elephants are known to go into staff quarters.”
The procedure for how to deal with elephant infections comes from treating humans and they give an infected animal 15 months of medication every day.
It costs about $60000 (R880 000) to treat one animal in that period.
“They don’t show clinical signs until they often actually die of the disease.
“We have a large number of species here in the Kruger that had bovine TB - white rhinos, warthogs, leopards, vervet monkeys, lions. The tests can take about a week. Some of the work is still elementary. We must pick up an infection before it has an impact.
“Through the research, we watch these animals closely to see if they are able to clear the infection. Will it progress to disease?”