Virginia Tech researchers find human virus in c...( Blacksburg Va. -- After studying chi...),Health

Blacksburg, Va. -- After studying chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park for the past year as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Virginia Tech researcher Dr. Taranjit Kaur and her team have produced powerful scientific evidence that chimpanzees are becoming sick from viral infectious diseases they have likely contracted from humans.

In an article to be published in the August issue (available on-line in June) of the American Journal of Primatology featuring a special section on "Disease Transmission, Ecosystems Health and Great Apes Research," Dr. Kaur, an assistant professor in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine's Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology at Virginia Tech, will report the results of extensive field studies conducted in the jungles of Africa.

The journal article will present data from molecular, microscopic and epidemiological investigations that demonstrate how the chimpanzees living at Mahale Mountains National Park have been suffering from a respiratory disease that is likely caused by a variant of a human paramyxovirus.

The work complements and validates work published in a recent edition of Current Biology by investigators from European research institutes that describes evidence of human viruses in deceased chimpanzees found in West Africa's Ta Forest.

The Mahale Mountains National Park's free-ranging, "human-habituated" chimpanzee population provides excellent opportunities for scientists and tourists alike to study and view chimpanzees, the closest genetic relative of humans, in their natural habitat, Kaur said.

"Although evidence increasingly suggests that infectious diseases may be transmitted from research teams and eco-tourists to endangered great apes, we believe that this is still a bit of a leap and more research must be conducted in order to establish a comfortable level of proof," said Kaur who
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