Yellow fever kills 600 monkeys in Brazil's Atlantic rainforest

Record ID: 183875

  • Title: Yellow fever kills 600 monkeys in Brazil's Atlantic rainforest
  • Date: 8th February 2017
  • Summary: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (FEBRUARY 7, 2017) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PRODUCTION OF YELLOW FEVER VACCINES
  • Embargoed: 22nd February 2017 18:19
  • Keywords: Brazil yellow fever monkeys Amazon
  • Location: ESPIRITO SANTO, MINAS GERAIS, AND RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
  • City: ESPIRITO SANTO, MINAS GERAIS, AND RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: Health/Medicine
  • Reuters ID: LVA00462NV32B
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: An outbreak of yellow fever has claimed the lives of more than 600 monkeys and dozens of humans in Brazil's Atlantic rainforest region, threatening the survival of rare South American primates, a zoologist said on Wednesday (February 8).
    The monkeys, mostly brown howlers and masked titis, are falling out of trees and dying on the ground in the forests of Espirito Santo state in Brazil's southeast.
    Zoologist Sergio Lucena said the number of deaths is increasing every day.
    The howler's sounds closely resemble grunts or barks. It was the silence that fell on the forests that first alerted farmers that something was amiss, sparking specialists to investigate.
    The masked titi is considered as "vulnerable" by the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has placed it on its Red List of Threatened Species.
    No evidence has so far surfaced of the affliction felling woolly spider monkeys, considered one of the world's most endangered by the IUCN.
    Brazil is suffering the worst yellow fever outbreak in decades that has killed at least 69 humans, nearly all in central state of Minas Gerais, where the problems began.
    Most people recover from yellow fever after the first phase of infection, which usually involves fever, headache, shivers, loss of appetite and nausea or vomiting, according to the World Health Organization.
    Millions of Brazilians have been vaccinated as health authorities scramble to prevent the outbreak from turning into an epidemic. There is no such protection available for monkeys.
    Director of the Fiocruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Artur Couto, said production of vaccines had been increased for Brazil.
    "Since last year when we were asked to collaborate with the World Health Organisation so that Brazil could collaborate with Africa, we increased our production capacity so that at that time we were attending to African countries and some Latin American countries, but with the crisis in Brazil, we started to dedicate more vaccines to the Brazilian market. Given the recognition we have, we have to resolve the supply problem here in Brazil," said Couto.
    "Our annual demand, which we are organising our production around, amounts to an average of 40 to 45 million dollars a year. This attends to Brazil's necessity and also to the neighbouring countries here in Latin America and in Africa. This year we are planning for the production of nine million dollars a month, so I would estimate in 10 months of production, 90 million dollars. Since last November, we have already delivered approximately 21 million dollars of vaccines for Brazil," Couto added.
    Yellow fever is a viral disease found in tropical regions of Africa and the Americas that mainly affects humans and monkeys and is transmitted by the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue and the Zika virus.
    The outbreak is concentrated in Brazil's border regions, where Couto said vaccination efforts would be focused.
    "Today, the Health Ministry strategy is to focus primarily where there is a high number of cases of Yellow Fever, which are the jungle border regions," said Couto.
    Hundreds of thousands of people died from it in the Americas before a vaccine was developed in 1938.
    Brazil's federal health officials are investigating if the latest outbreak is linked to a tailings dam collapse last year in Minas Gerais at the Samarco iron ore mine co-owned by BHP Billiton and Vale SA.
    The dam accident, which polluted the Rio Doce river, is regarded as the country's worst environmental disaster.
    Some scientists have said that calamity may have made the monkeys more susceptible to contracting yellow fever by decimating their habitat and food supplies.
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