Pioneering campaign to vaccinate endangered monkeys in Brazil against yellow fever may help save the beloved golden lion tamarins from extinction.
Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.In a small lab nestled in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, researchers with gloved hands and masked faces cradle four tiny golden monkeys so a veterinarian can delicately slide a needle under the thin skin of each sedated animal’s belly.
The inoculation campaign started in 2021, and already more than 300 tamarins have been vaccinated. The first such effort in Brazil — and one of the first worldwide — it raises vital questions about how far to go to save a species from extinction. “We have to intervene when it’s a human-borne conservation risk, if you’re going to have an environment with wildlife,” said Ruiz-Miranda.
in general has caused delays. Yet if the scientists get it right, they could be pioneers to show what’s possible to save threatened wildlife.The story of the golden lion tamarins is an epic saga – one that Marcos da Silva Freire, a longtime Brazilian health official, has experienced firsthand. When Freire’s father, a landowner, was approached by researchers, he told them to coordinate with his son, then a veterinary student in his mid-20s.
Thanks to that effort – and subsequent campaigns to replant and connect parcels of rainforest – the population of tamarins slowly recovered, reaching around 3,700 by 2014.One misty winter morning, Andréia Martins pulled on a camouflage jacket, rubber boots and a face mask, and tucked her machete into her belt. She followed a narrow path through the rainforest, stopping periodically to whistle in imitation of monkey contact calls.
After the first lab-confirmed death of a tamarin from yellow fever in 2018, her team’s census revealed the population of wild tamarins had dropped from 3,700 to around 2,500. “We lost 32% of the wild population. It was a tragedy – it showed us how vulnerable this small population is,” said Ferraz, of the nonprofit Golden Lion Tamarin Association.By a twist of fate, Marcos da Silva Freire had gone on to specialize in viruses. At the time of the yellow fever outbreak, he was a deputy director of technological development at Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, which oversees vaccine diagnostics and production in the country.
Freire started to draw up a plan for the tamarins. “The idea is to vaccinate 500 animals,” he said. “For 150 animals, the goal is to vaccinate, then collect blood samples later – to test the safety and efficacy.” So far, they’ve vaccinated more than 300 tamarins and detected no adverse side effects. When they’ve caught and retested monkeys, 90% to 95% have shown immunity -- similar to the efficacy of human vaccines.
Of special concern are cases when encounters between humans or domestic animals and wildlife directly pass diseases to threatened species, as with respiratory diseases and great apes. Several studies have shown that chimpanzees that live near human settlements have higher rates of multiple diseases.
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