US: In a first, gorillas test positive for coronavirus
Several gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the first known apes in the United States and possibly the world to be infected with it. Two gorillas began coughing last week and have since tested positive for COVID-19, while a third is currently showing symptoms, reports said. Here are more details on this.
Lisa Peterson, the park's executive director told The Associated Press that eight gorillas who live together there are believed to have contracted the virus. "Aside from some congestion and coughing, the gorillas are doing well," Peterson said, adding they are hopeful for a full recovery. The gorillas apparently contracted the infection from a zoo worker who also tested positive but has been asymptomatic.
Veterinarians are closely monitoring the gorillas and they will remain in their habitat at the park. The gorillas are being given vitamins, fluid and food, but not a special treatment for the virus. The San Diego Zoo Safari Park has remained closed to the public since early December as part of the state of California's lockdown efforts to check the rise in coronavirus cases.
Wildlife experts have expressed concern over the COVID-19 infecting gorillas, an endangered species that share 98.4 percent of their DNA with humans and are also inherently social beings. The gorillas infected at the San Diego Safari Park are western lowland gorillas, whose population declined by more than 60% over the last two decades owing to poaching and disease, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
The gorillas are the latest animals to be infected with the virus, that has killed more than 19 lakh people around the world. In April, the first case of human-to-cat transmission was found when a tiger in a New York City zoo tested positive for it. In August, minks tested positive and later a snow leopard was found to be infected with the coronavirus.
In November 2020, as many as 17 million minks were culled in Denmark after coronavirus outbreaks were reported at more than 200 mink farms. The northern region of the country was also placed under strict lockdowns. In July, thousands of minks were culled in Spain.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China in late 2019, has infected more than nine crore people around the world. The US remains the worst-hit country in the outbreak, reporting over 2.31 crore cases and more than 3,85,000 deaths. India, meanwhile, is the second worst-affected nation with over 1.04 crore infections and 1,51,364 deaths due to it.
