The Congo War and Ebola Virus

A view of Lake Kivu just north of Goma, DRC, which is the site of recent rebel fighting.

Last week, the Congolese government launched attacks on the rebels hiding out near Goma and the DRC side of the Virungas park. Lawlessness in this region led earlier to the outright killing of at least a dozen mountain gorillas (Gorilla Slaughter, A Personal Account).

Now, people displaced by the war are taking what they need from the forest — cutting down trees to make charcoal for fuel, searching for freshwater and hunting in order to survive. Refugee camps are also multiplying, increasing the risk of the spread of infectious diseases to the gorillas.

I hope Anderson Cooper's story, which aired recently on CBS' 60 Minutes, draws attention to the fact that this war threatens the health of the entire DRC Virungas ecosystem: the people, the gorillas and the forest.

Mountain gorilla orphans Ndeze and Ndakasi play on their wooden tripod in Goma, DRC.

The deteriorating situation around Goma also threatens Ndakasi and Ndeze, the two orphaned mountain gorillas still being cared for there. We continue to wait for permission to move them to Kinigi, where I think they would thrive.

I wrote in an earlier blog that we'd begun feeding them yogurt as a treatment for the diarrhea that has afflicted them off and on to help promote friendly intestinal flora, bacteria they would normally acquire from their mother's milk. Unfortunately, they didn't really like the yogurt, so we've switched instead to acidophilus tablets in their milk. Now, Jean Paul is running special stains on their feces so we can monitor the changes, if any. I've asked him to teach the field vets how to do this test. The orphans continue to present a learning opportunity for all of us at MGVP.

The border between the Bwindi forest in Uganda and cultivated land.

Meanwhile, an outbreak of Ebola virus has killed two dozen people in Uganda. It began in a town a considerable distance from our area, but the contagion is still closer to Bwindi and the Virungas park — and Rwanda — than it's ever been before. This rapidly fatal hemorrhagic fever spreads through close contact with infected body fluids. Infection in humans has been linked to the practice of eating bush meat, particularly primates and fruit bats.

This virus has also killed thousands of lowland gorillas and chimpanzees elsewhere in Central Africa. Though it has never been reported in mountain gorillas, we consider them highly susceptible. The disease is so nasty that relatively few — people or animals — survive the infection long enough to infect others, so Ebola rarely spreads great distances. Even so, we're all on alert as the situation progresses.

An infant mountain gorilla — Umoja — in Kwitonda Group, Rwanda.

Despite the November and December rains, we have not yet had a case of respiratory illness among the mountain gorillas in Rwanda and the mild coughs in Uganda's Nkuringo Group have resolved. We don't know, of course, about the gorillas in DRC. All we can do is carry on with our jobs in the places where we can safely monitor the gorillas.

When I made a routine health check to assess the members of the Kwitonda Group this week, their pristine forest home seemed light years away from the war and the deadly Ebola, but it's not.

Infant Segasira in Kuryama Group, Rwanda.

During my first month on the job in last year's rainy season there was a severe outbreak of flu-like respiratory disease in Rwanda's Pablo Group that led to the death of several infants. Just as the group began to recover, poachers at the Rwanda-Congo border splintered the family, separating infants from mothers and leading to the death of those who were too young to survive the sudden weaning.

Every time I see the lone survivor, Agahozo, united again with his mother in Pablo Group, I think of the need to prevent these incursions from the outside — poaching and the introduction of human disease.

I responded to a call about a coughing gorilla last week, fearing this could be the start of a new outbreak. The trackers had reported a persistent cough the day before in 2-1/2-year-old Segasira, an infant male in the Kuryama (research) Group.

He wasn't coughing during my visit, however, and appeared perfectly normal. He'd probably had what we call a "gallium" cough. This sticky plant often catches in the back of a gorilla's throat, causing irritation that produces coughing. Because we know that coughs and sneezes can be intermittent, it's always a good idea to stay in the group for at least an hour to be certain there’s no problem. So I took plenty of time to watch Segasira playing, eating and tumbling with the other youngsters in order to make sure he was OK — the best part of the job.

Magayane has recovered completely from the loss of the end of one finger from a poacher's snare.

A group of us met at MGVP's offices in Ruhengeri recently to review what we know about Ebola and to discuss the increasing number of refugee camps nearby in DRC to be certain we're all sharing information as it comes in. The meeting was also an opportunity to go over all of the guidelines in place to protect the health of the mountain gorillas from tourists, scientists, park staff and the military.

We agreed the Ebola outbreak in Uganda is not so close that we recommend immediate action like closing border crossings or access to the park. But everything could change rapidly if the infection should spread in our direction.

Two years ago, the silverback mountain gorilla named Kwitonda moved
his family to Rwanda from DRC, and he hasn't gone back.

For general information on Ebola, check the Centers for Disease Control.

Sciencedaily is very readable and gives many links about this disease.

For news updates on Ebola as well as the DRC Congo War, check Reuters.

See also various blogs on Wildlife Direct for more about the Virungas park in DRC.

[Rwanda, Dec. 9, 2007. Pictures: Lucy Spelman/MGVP]

Comments

[x-ray fluorescence]

Hi,
Very nice photos.All photos are looking very good..

[kiki]

awwwwwwwwwwwwww i want one lol
there cute haha

[Olivia]

hi my name Is Olivia and I am a Gorilla LOVER my BIGGEST wish is to go to africa and see this lovely animal.I'll prove that I love Gorillas . Here are some facts. You should naver look a gorilla in the eye because they think you are threating them. There are three types of gorillas they are...... lowland highland and mountain gorillas. And the last fact is that The word Gorilla means Hairy Person.
and Im only in the 4th grade.