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Alarm as lethal plague detected among rare Mongolian antelope
Monday, 2017/02/06 | 07:35:11
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Addressing wildlife risks add to urgency of global campaign to eradicate Peste des Petits Ruminants by 2030
Figure: Saiga ecology expert Steffen Zuther examines a dying female animal after 2015 die-off in Kazakhstan.
FAO 27 January 2017, Rome/Paris-The international pledge to eradicate a devastating livestock disease affecting mostly sheep and goats has taken on new urgency in the wake of a mass die-off of a rare Mongolian antelope.
Some 900 Saiga antelopes (Saiga tatarica mongolica) - almost 10 percent of the sub-species' population - have been found dead in Mongolia's western Khovd province. Samples taken from carcasses indicated the animals were positive for Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), a highly fatal viral disease with plague-like impact on domestic sheep and goat herds, killing up to 90 percent of infected animals.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are leading a multinational effort to eradicate PPR, which can have devastating food-security and economic impacts, by 2030.
Eighty percent of the world's estimated 2.1 billion small ruminants live in affected regions and constitute an important asset for a third of poor rural households. PPR, first identified in Côte d'Ivoire in the 1940s, is now threatening over 75 countries.
While wildlife have long been considered potentially vulnerable, relatively few actual cases of PPR infection have been documented in free ranging wild goat-like species and never in free-ranging antelope.
The dead are highly suggestive of a spillover event from domestic animals with whom they share common grazing areas, especially in winter when foraging ranges are fewer. Efforts are ongoing to investigate the situation on the ground, geared in particular to investigating possible other causes, such as the bacterial infection (Pasteurella multocida) that is now suspected to have been the cause of death of hundreds of thousands of saiga in Kazakhstan in 2015.
Saiga in Mongolia are not truly migratory but are certainly nomadic with an extensive range of about 130 000 square kilometers with seasonal movements in autumn for breeding and early spring for calving. The species, was once widely spread across the Eurasian steppes, is classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
PPR outbreak occurrence in Mongolia
Mongolia reported its first-ever outbreak of PPR in September 2016, when sheep and goat deaths were linked to an extension of PPR cases occurring in China.
The domestic small ruminant population in Mongolia is currently 45 million and plays an essential economic and social role in a country where more than one third of the population derives its livelihoods directly from livestock. Mongolia exports live animals, meat, milk and is the world's top producer of high-quality cashmere wool.
At that time, FAO and OIE immediately mobilized their Crisis Management Center for Animal Health (CMC-AH) to Ulaanbaatar to help local veterinary services assess the epidemiological situation and propose immediate and medium-term actions aimed at controlling the spread of the disease. More than 11 million domestic small ruminants - crucial for food security and nutrition - were vaccinated in the effort.
The saiga deaths, which highlight the extreme vulnerability of animals that have not been exposed to PPR as well as the challenge of protecting wildlife, are an "unprecedented and worrisome development," said OIE Director-General Monique Eloit.
"The OIE will continue to work closely with FAO to assist the Government of Mongolia in dealing with the PPR outbreaks and protect both livestock and wildlife, starting with a new CMC-AH mission in a few days," she said. "To avoid a quick and catastrophic spread of the disease, a close cooperation between the veterinary services and those responsible for wildlife management will be particularly essential."
See more: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/463932/icode/ |
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