Wild Chimpanzees Infected with 5 Plasmodium Species
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Date
2010
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Emerging infectious diseases
Abstract
Despite ongoing and, in some regions, escalating morbidity
and mortality rates associated with malariacausing
parasites, the evolutionary epidemiology of Plasmodium
spp. is not well characterized. Classical studies
of the blood pathogens of primates have found protozoa
resembling human malaria parasites in chimpanzees and
gorillas (1); however, these studies were limited to microscopy,
negating conclusions regarding evolutionary
relationships between human and ape parasites. Recent
studies that used molecular approaches showed that captive
and wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and lowland
gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), as well as captive bonobos (Pan
paniscus), harbor parasites broadly related to P. falciparum
(2–5); wild and captive gorillas and captive bonobos and
chimpanzees are sometimes infected with P. falciparum itself
(4–6). Further, captive chimpanzees and bonobos have
been shown to have malaria parasites related to human P.
ovale and P. malariae (6–8); P. vivax has been identified
in various monkeys and 1 semiwild chimpanzee (5,9). Recently,
P. knowlesi, a simian malaria species, became the
fifth human-infecting species (10), highlighting the possibility
of transmission of new Plasmodium spp. from wild
primates to humans.
Description
Keywords
Wild Chimpanzees, Plasmodium Species
Citation
Kaiser, M., Löwa, A., Ulrich, M., Ellerbrok, H., Goffe, A. S., Blasse, A., ... & Leendertz, F. H. (2010). Wild chimpanzees infected with 5 Plasmodium species. Emerging infectious diseases, 16(12), 1956. DOI: 10.3201/eid1612.100424