Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus
| Elephantid herpesvirus 1 | |
|---|---|
| Virus classification | |
| Group: | Group I (dsDNA) |
| Order: | Herpesvirales |
| Family: | Herpesviridae |
| Subfamily: | Betaherpesvirinae |
| Genus: | Proboscivirus |
| Species | |
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Elephantid herpesvirus 1 |
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Elephantid herpesvirus 1
Elephant endotheliotropic herpesviruses (EEHV) or Elephantid herpesvirus 1' is a type of herpesvirus, which can cause a highly fatal hemorrhagic disease when transmitted to young Asian elephants. In African elephants, related forms of these viruses, which have been identified in wild populations, are generally benign, occasionally surfacing to cause small growths or lesions. However, some types of EEHV can cause a highly fatal disease in Asian elephants, which kills up to 80% of severely affected individuals. The disease can be treated with the rapid application of antiviral drugs, but this has only been effective in around a third of cases.
The first case of a fatal form of the disease was documented in 1995, though tissue samples from as early as the 1980s have since tested positive for the virus, and localized skin lesions in wild African elephants were recorded in the 1970s. Since 1995, there have been over fifty documented disease cases in North America and Europe, of which only nine have been successfully cured. Those affected are mostly young animals born in captivity, though a small number of older wild-born adults held in zoos have died, and a number of cases caused by the same pathogenic type of EEHV have been identified in both orphan and wild calves in Asian elephant populations.
The EEHVs are members of the Proboscivirus genus, a novel clade most closely related to the mammalian betaherpesviruses that have been responsible for as many as 70 deaths of both zoo and wild Asian elephants worldwide, especially in young calves. There are currently six known species/types of the probosciviruses, and the most commonly encountered and most pathogenic form EEHV1 also has two chimeric subtypes, 1A and 1B., as well as numerous distinct strains.
EEHV1A (originally just known as EEHV1) was the first species/type identified, which causes an acute hemorrhagic disease with a very high mortality rate in Asian elephants. This form of the virus was originally believed to occur naturally in African elephants (occasionally producing skin nodules), and to be transmitted to Asian elephants within captivity, but more extensive studies have since largely disproved this concept because several other species/types of EEHV (e.g. EEHV2, EEHV3 and EEHV6) instead have been identified in African elephants. A second lethal subtype, EEHV1B, was identified in Asian elephants in 2001. EEHV3, EEHV4 and EEHV5 have also each been responsible for the deaths of at least one Asian elephant calf.
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