Center for Wildlife Studies, Veterinary Faculty, University Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
PT Medica Satwa Laboratories for Animal Health, Bogor, Indonesia.
J Zoo Wildl Med. 2021 Jan;51(4):985-993. doi: 10.1638/2020-0003.
As many as a dozen cases of lethal acute hemorrhagic disease (HD) in young captive-born Sumatran sub-species Asian elephant () calves raised naturally in camps in Sumatra have been observed in recent years. To address whether these deaths, like many others documented worldwide, might be associated with acute systemic infection by elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), diagnostic polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests followed by subtype deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing analysis were carried out on pathologic tissue samples from two lethal HD cases that occurred within 6 days of one another in calves at the same camp. Viral DNA from five selected PCR loci was found to be present at high levels in both calves and proved to be the same EEHV1A virus species that has been described most commonly previously in numerous lethal or surviving symptomatic cases in North America, Europe, India, and Thailand. Furthermore, the two cases were identical at all five PCR loci tested (covering a total of 3,050 base pairs) and were therefore likely to have been infected from the same epidemiologic source herdmate. However, the strain involved (which was subtype-D2 in the vGPCR1 locus) differed from all previously characterized EEHV1A strains. In conclusion, these two calves are the first two confirmed HD cases in Sumatra alongside several other suspected HD cases in Sumatra that have succumbed to the same devastating EEHV1A-HD that has afflicted young Asian elephants worldwide over the past 25 yr. Because the progeny of some of the 1,500 remaining red-listed critically endangered Sumatra subspecies elephants are bred naturally in camps from wild parents it seems very likely that the EEHV1A herpesvirus identified here in these HD camp cases is also present in the free-ranging Sumatran elephant population, and this will have to be taken into account in future wildlife management policies and decisions.
近年来，人们在苏门答腊自然营地中饲养的年轻圈养出生的苏门答腊亚种亚洲象幼象中观察到多达 12 例致命性急性出血性疾病（HD）病例。为了确定这些死亡病例是否与急性全身性感染象内皮细胞嗜性疱疹病毒（EEHV）有关，对来自同一营地的两只 HD 病例的病理解剖组织样本进行了诊断聚合酶链反应（PCR）检测和亚型脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）测序分析。在两只幼象中，从五个选定的 PCR 基因座检测到的病毒 DNA 水平很高，证明是先前在北美、欧洲、印度和泰国的许多致命或存活的症状病例中描述的常见 EEHV1A 病毒种。此外，这两个病例在所有五个 PCR 基因座（总共覆盖 3050 个碱基对）上均相同，因此很可能是从同一流行病来源的同群象中感染的。然而，所涉及的菌株（在 vGPCR1 基因座中为亚型-D2）与所有先前表征的 EEHV1A 菌株不同。总之，这两只幼象是苏门答腊首例确诊的 HD 病例，还有其他几例疑似 HD 病例也在苏门答腊死亡，它们都死于在过去 25 年中影响全世界年轻亚洲象的同一致命 EEHV1A-HD。由于 1500 头仅剩的红色名录极危苏门答腊亚种大象中的一些后代是从野生父母自然繁殖的，因此，这里在这些 HD 营地病例中确定的 EEHV1A 疱疹病毒很可能也存在于自由放养的苏门答腊大象种群中，这将必须在未来的野生动物管理政策和决策中考虑到这一点。
