🔗 Share this article

Researchers have made a major advance in developing a novel immunization to prevent a deadly virus that targets young elephants.

The inoculation, produced by an international scientific group, aims to prevent the serious illness caused by elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), which is presently a primary cause of death in juvenile Asian elephants.

In tests that involved adult elephants at the facility, the vaccine was found to be safe and, importantly, to activate part of the immune system that helps combating viruses.

Prof Falko Steinbach described this as "a pivotal step in our work to protect Asian elephants".

It is anticipated that the result of this pioneering trial will pave the way to preventing the deaths of young elephants from the harmful disease caused by this virus.

Severe Consequences

EEHV has had a especially devastating effect in zoos. At Chester Zoo by itself, multiple baby elephants have died to it over the last decade. It has additionally been found in natural populations and in certain refuges and elephant orphanages.

It causes a bleeding disorder - unchecked hemorrhaging that can be fatal within a day. It results in death in more than 80% of cases in young elephants.

Comprehending the Danger

Why EEHV can be so lethal is still unclear. Numerous adult elephants host the virus - seemingly with no negative impact on their health. But it is thought that young elephants are especially susceptible when they are being weaned, and when the protective defenses from the maternal nutrition decrease.

At this stage, a calf's natural defenses is in a delicate balance and it can become overwhelmed. "It may lead to extremely serious illness," Dr Katie Edwards stated.

"It impacts wild elephants, but we don't have an precise count of how many fatalities in total it has resulted in. For elephants in human care however, there have been over a hundred deaths."

Immunization Creation

The research team, led by veterinary scientists, developed the new vaccine using a tried and tested "framework". Essentially, the basic structure of this vaccine is identical to one commonly employed to vaccinate elephants against a virus called a related virus.

The researchers seeded this vaccine structure with components from EEHV - harmless bits of the virus that the animal's immune system might identify and react against.

In a world-first experiment, the team tested the novel vaccine in several healthy, mature elephants at Chester Zoo, then analysed blood samples from the vaccinated animals.

Prof Steinbach stated that the findings, released in a scientific journal, were "better than we had hoped for".

"The results demonstrated, clearly that the vaccine was able to activate the production of immune cells, that are crucial to combating viral infections."

Next Phases

The subsequent phase for the researchers is to try the vaccine in more juvenile elephants, which are the animals most at risk to severe illness.

The present immunization involves four shots to be given, so an additional objective is to work out if the equivalent effective dose can be provided in a simpler way - possibly with fewer injections.

The conservation scientist clarified: "Ultimately we want to employ this vaccine in the elephants that are at risk, so we need to make sure that we can get it to where it's needed."

The project lead added: "We think this is a significant step forward, and not necessarily only for the elephants, but because it additionally shows that you can develop and use vaccines to assist threatened animals."