A Mysterious, Lethal Chimp Disease Is Linked to a Human Illness
Deaths at a Sierra Leone sanctuary that stumped people for 15 years have now been linked to a bacterium that seems to cause similar ailments in humans.
A young chimpanzee at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone in 2019.Credit.Reuters
Feb. 3, 2021
Chimpanzees had been dying mysteriously at the Tacugama sanctuary in Sierra Leone for a decade or so by 2016 when Tony Goldberg set to work on figuring out why.
The sanctuary staff, veterinarians and biologists had conducted several investigations into the disease over the years. It was not contagious, did not infect humans, did not appear at other sanctuaries, but killed chimps at Tacugama in an unmistakable, alarming pattern.