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A new and always fatal disease that has been killing chimpanzees at a sanctuary in Sierra Leone for years has been reported for the first time by an international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The disease, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, is caused by a newly discovered species of bacterium and comes as the world wrestles with a devastating pandemic caused by another novel foe, the new coronavirus.
Although the chimpanzee illness has yet to be found in a human being, the two species share about 99% of their hereditary material, or DNA.