Some Bonobos And Orangutans In California Just Got COVID-19 Shots

SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CA — Great apes are a lot like us — or, rather, because they came first in our evolutionary journey, we’re a lot like them.

We share the same bone structure and the same internal organs. The genetic difference between our species is minuscule; our DNA is about 97 percent similar. We get many of the same diseases.

That includes COVID-19, the coronavirus disease that has claimed more than 2.5 million human lives worldwide, more than 519,000 of them in the United States.

And because great apes are highly susceptible to the same respiratory diseases that threaten human life, some are getting COVID-19 vaccinations, too.

Last month, an orangutan named Karen at the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park was one of the first great apes vaccinated for COVID-19. Karen was already something of a medical miracle as the first orangutan in the world to undergo open-heart surgery. That was in 1994.

Three other orangutans and five bonobos at the zoo have also received two-dose inoculations for COVID-19 after a troop of gorillas tested positive for the coronavirus in January. It was the first known natural transmission of the virus from humans to great apes, zoo officials said. They suspect the apes acquired the infection from an asymptomatic staff member, despite that person wearing a mask and other personal protective equipment — standard protocol even before the pandemic.

• Related: Gorillas Test Positive For COVID-19 At San Diego Zoo

The nine great apes received the experimental vaccine developed for animals by a veterinary pharmaceutical company, Nadine Lamberski, chief conservation officer and wildlife health officer at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, told National Geographic.

“This isn’t the norm,” she said. “In my career, I haven’t had access to an experimental vaccine this early in the process and haven’t had such overwhelming desire to want to use one.”

Documentation of the zoo's experience with COVID-19 in its gorilla population may inform scientists' understanding of the virus and how it affects great apes around the world, Lamberski said in a statement. She noted that her organization "continues to share what they’ve learned about curbing zoonotic disease transmission, biosecurity protocols in managed care and field settings, and the implications to ensuring optimal health outcomes for humans and wildlife globally."

Primatologists are worried about the spread of the coronavirus in threatened great ape species. Though the gorillas at the San Diego zoo were the first and only known great apes to test positive for the virus, infections have been noted globally in tigers, lions, mink, snow leopards, cougars, a ferret, dogs and domestic cats.

Gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees all live in close family groups in the wild, while orangutans are semi-solitary, and all types of great apes are endangered. A coronavirus infection in one individual could further imperil species in crisis.

Human diseases have already taken a toll on great ape populations.

“There’s been a lot of cases in the wild of large portions of populations being decimated because we gave a cold to them,” Monica Wakefield, a Northern Kentucky University professor and primate expert, told news station WCPO in Cincinnati, where officials at the Cincinnati Zoo took extra precautions to protect great apes in captivity.

“Just like we’re still adjusting to COVID, it could be very detrimental to them,” Wakefield said.

Writing for The Conservation a year ago as the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic, the African Conservation Foundation’s Arend de Haas called for a temporary halt to great ape trekking tours, research and habituation activities.

“This is despite the fact that ecotourism is vital to long-term conservation of endangered animals,” he wrote. “But in the longer term, a ban would protect the great apes as well as the ecotourism operations.”

Only about 880 mountain gorillas remain today, and scientists have recorded at least 18 outbreaks of human-originating respiratory diseases in their populations over the 20-year period from 1990 to 2010. All species of gorilla are endangered, with fewer than 5,000 remaining in the wild.

Additionally, humans have passed on acute and fatal respiratory diseases to habituated wild chimpanzees — that is, those accustomed to being around humans — with infection rates of 34 percent to 98 percent and mortality rates between 3 percent and 7 percent.

The San Diego Zoo gorillas who tested positive for COVID-19 are convalescing, and all will eventually be vaccinated. The vaccinated orangutans and bonobos are doing well and have shown no adverse side effects, Lamberski told National Geographic.

But zoo officials don’t yet know if they’re working. That’s something that will be determined in the analysis of blood draws taken from the orangutan Karen and one of the bonobos. The presence of antibodies would indicate the vaccine is working.

The risks of giving the vaccine to the great apes were carefully weighed. There’s a risk involved with any species, Lamberski told National Geographic, but “it’s not like we randomly grab a vaccine and give it to a novel species.

“A lot of thought and research goes into it — what’s the risk of doing it and what’s the risk of not doing it,” she said. “Our motto is, above all, to do no harm.”

The magazine reported that other U.S. zoos have asked for the vaccine, which could be available by June.