Abstract
In January 2015, during a 3-week period, 12 captive Tonkean macacques at a sanctuary in Italy died. An orthopoxvirus infection was suspected because of negative-staining electron microscopy results. The diagnosis was confirmed by histology, virus isolation, and molecular analysis performed on different organs from all animals. An epidemiologic investigation was unable to define the infection source in the surrounding area. Trapped rodents were negative by virologic testing, but specific IgG was detected in 27.27% of small rodents and 14.28% of rats. An attenuated live vaccine was administered to the susceptible monkey population, and no adverse reactions were observed; a detectable humoral immune response was induced in most of the vaccinated animals. We performed molecular characterization of the orthopoxvirus isolate by next-generation sequencing. According to the phylogenetic analysis of the 9 conserved genes, the virus could be part of a novel clade, lying between cowpox and ectromelia viruses.
Highlights
In January 2015, during a 3-week period, 12 captive Tonkean macacques at a sanctuary in Italy died
Detection of orthopoxvirus antibodies from nonhuman primates (NHPs) and small rodents was performed by indirect immunofluorescence antibody (IFA) assay with homemade slides that were seeded with Vero-E6 cells and infected with the smallpox vaccine virus Lancy-Vaxina [21]
This epidemic indicated that Tonkean macaques are highly susceptible to infection with the isolated orthopoxvirus strain and might develop severe, fatal disease
Summary
The colony of Tonkean macaques was introduced to the sanctuary in 2007 from the Strasbourg Primate Centre of Strasbourg University (Strasbourg, France); the original stock had been imported into France from Indonesia in 1972. 13 animals from the same enclosure displayed signs of depression, nausea, respiratory distress, and neurologic disease, and in several animals, skin and mucosa lesions developed (Figure 1). Ten of these 13 macaques died within 15 days after the appearance of signs and symptoms; 2 of 13 recovered after 6 and 8 days; and the remaining animal, an adult male, recovered but experienced long-lasting effects from the infection. Using tissue homogenates of the skin and tongue mucosa, brain, lungs, liver, spleen, heart, mesenteric lymph nodes, and intestines of the 12 dead animals (a total of 70 samples), we conducted an additional SYBR Green realtime PCR to confirm the presence of orthopoxvirus in all affected animals (Table 1). Crater-shaped skin lesions at inguinal region of Tonkean macaque (Macaca tonkeana) housed at animal sanctuary, Italy, January 2015
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